Circumstances:
The aircraft was being used to deliver newspapers. On arrival and during the landing roll, the pilot noted that the air strip surface was soft. A rain shower had passed over the air strip about an hour earlier. The initial part of the subsequent take-off roll appeared to be normal, but after using about half of the 950 metre strip the pilot became concerned that the aircraft had not reached flying speed. At an airspeed of about 60 knots the aircraft became airborne briefly, before settling back onto the strip. At that point, the pilot elected to abandon the take-off, closed the throttles and mixture controls, and applied full braking. The aircraft skidded for about 300 metres, coming to rest about 50 metres beyond the end of the strip. During the overrun the left main landing gear collapsed.
