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DEN99LA048 · Piper PA-28-235

6 Mar 1999 · Provo, UT, United States

Piper PA-28-235 and Diamond Aircraft Industries DA 20-A1 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff

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Event

NTSB case
DEN99LA048
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

Aircraft 1 · Piper PA-28-235

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
N4312A
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Provo Municipal Airport (PVU)To Richfield Municipal Airport (RIF), Richfield, UT
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
Takeoff · roll/run
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
On ground/water collision with object
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Destroyed

Aircraft 2 · Diamond Aircraft Industries DA 20-A1

Aircraft type
Diamond DA-20
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
N189DA
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Provo Municipal Airport (PVU)To 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
Takeoff · roll/run
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
On ground/water collision with object
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 › Judgment, poor
  • Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
  • Pilot in command › Visual lookout, not maintained
  • Pilot in command › Wrong runway, intentional
  • Pilot of other aircraft › Judgment, poor
  • Pilot of other aircraft › Procedures/directives, not followed
  • Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, not maintained
  • Pilot of other aircraft › Wrong runway, intentional

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Provo, UT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

N189DA, a Diamond-DA 20-A1 was one of several airplanes in the traffic pattern for runway 31, which was the active runway. The airplane landed and was on landing rollout when it was struck by N4312A, a Piper PA-28-235 that was on takeoff roll on runway 18. The collision occurred at the intersection of runways 31 and 18. The pilot of the piper said he saw two airplanes in the traffic pattern, and heard both pilots advise of their positions and intentions. The pilot of the piper announced that he would be taxiing onto runway 18 for departure because he had 'plenty of time to depart before either of the two aircraft were in position to land.' He did not see the diamond, which was ahead of the other two airplanes. Two other pilots reported having near collisions with the piper earlier that day, and one pilot reported having a near collision with the piper two months earlier.

Probable cause

The pilot exercising poor judgment by ignoring proper procedures/directives, his intentional selection of the wrong runway for takeoff, and his failure to maintain an adequate visual lookout. Factors were his ostentatious display, the other airplane moving on the ground, and the other pilot's failure to maintain an adequate visual lookout.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DEN99LA048
Event ID
20001205X00306
Case number
DEN99LA048
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: adbfe3c02f40093797c9f3d006f1504bf81ad0c77947b138d1882ab3a9d485dc; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:11:23.441Z.