LAX99LA073 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA073
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N4129S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR), Goodyear, AZTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Altitude/clearance, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI) was familiar with the area, and he initiated a simulated total loss of engine power for a practice forced landing for his student as they approached a crop duster airstrip. The dirt airstrip is located on a small bluff, and approaching it they encountered a downdraft. The student reset the wing flaps from 40 to 25 degrees; however, the airplane descended below the desired glide path. The CFI allowed the student to continue approaching the airstrip. The CFI directed that a go-around be initiated, and engine power was rapidly applied. Seconds later, the airplane impacted a residential service power line and an unoccupied house as the power was increasing. The airplane came to rest about 550 short of the airstrip. The operator, who employed the CFI, reported that it had provided the CFI with written guidance regarding the minimum altitude at which go-arounds were to be initiated during the practice of simulated forced landings. In pertinent part, the operator's Procedures and Techniques manual stated the following: 'Every go around from a simulated engine failure shall be performed by the student prior to 500 feet AGL if not approaching a paved runway.'
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate supervision of his student and his failure to initiate timely remedial action. Contributing factors were the student's failure to maintain the proper glidepath under the existing downdraft condition, the flight instructor's failure to adhere to the company procedure regarding minimum safe altitudes for termination of practice forced landings. Additional contributing factors were the downdraft condition and the power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA073
- Event ID
- 20001204X00078
- Case number
- LAX99LA073
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d8387efd95d565035005a61720782e4b4477fad189db6587d388103d97f10bf4; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:37:18.056Z.