FTW95LA369 · Piper PA-28-181
P C Flyers Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From Centennial Airport (APA) to Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA369
- 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
- N8450B
- Operator
- P C Flyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), ENGLEWWOD, COTo Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT BEFORE TAKEOFF, HE CALLED FLIGHT SERVICE TO OBTAIN WEATHER INFORMATION AND NOTAMS. AFTER BEING BRIEFED ON NOTAMS FOR THE FORT COLLINS-LOVELAND AIRPORT, HE UNDERSTOOD THAT THE FIRST 400' PORTION OF RUNWAY 33 WAS CLOSED (FOR CONSTRUCTION). ACTUALLY, THE FIRST 4000' PORTION OF THAT RUNWAY WAS CLOSED. WHILE EN ROUTE AT NIGHT, HE ELECTED TO MAKE A TOUCH-AND-GO LANDING ON THAT RUNWAY. DURING THE LANDING, THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT 2000' SHORT OF THE TEMPORARY THRESHOLD. AFTER TOUCHDOWN, THE PILOT HEARD A NOISE AND SAW BARRICADES. HE APPLIED POWER AND FLEW OVER THE BARRICADES, BUT FOUND DAMAGE ON THE AIRPLANE AFTER THE FLIGHT. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE RUNWAY WAS PROPERLY MARKED, RUNWAY LIGHTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION AREA WERE COVERED, THE THRESHOLD LIGHTS HAD BEEN MOVED TO THE TEMPORARY THRESHOLD, AND PROPER NOTAMS HAD BEEN ISSUED.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO ATTAIN THE PROPER TOUCHDOWN POINT FOR LANDING. A FACTOR RELATING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: A MISREADING OR MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE NOTAMS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA369
- Event ID
- 20001207X04266
- Case number
- FTW95LA369
- 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: d0e58d6f1980db0d3353daed02cc603eae781ac0d951aa317bb4f4152b16e8da; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:20:55.055Z.