Las Vegas Airlines Flight 89
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96FA122
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N27989
- Operator
- Las Vegas Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN), AZ
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Airport facilities, runway/landing area condition › Icy
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the operator, the pilot obtained preflight weather information from DUAT, ASOS, and had made a call to the Grand Canyon tower. The weather was above landing minimums and forecast to stay above. The operator stated that for the last 3 months the ASOS had not been reliable. According to the pilot's report, he received ATIS information 'Juliet' approaching Grand Canyon and it was 1,200 scattered with visibility of 3/4 miles. According to the FAA, information 'Juliet' was reporting, 50 minutes before the accident: a measured ceiling 1,300 feet broken; 3,000 feet overcast; visibility 3/4 mile in fog; temperature 23 degrees Fahrenheit; dew point 21 degrees Fahrenheit; wind calm; and the altimeter was 30.03 inHg. At the time of the accident, the ASOS was reporting indefinite 400 feet overcast with 1/4 mile in fog and snow. The ILS approach requires a minimum of a 200-foot ceiling and 1/2 mile visibility. The braking action was reported as poor due to snow and ice. The airplane landed to the left of the runway centerline and collapsed the landing gear as it slid sideways. A light ice buildup was observed on the leading edges of the airframe by airport personnel. According to the pilot, he had operated the deice boots just prior to landing.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot to maintain directional control of the aircraft after landing. Contributing to the accident was the icy runway conditions with poor braking.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96FA122
- Event ID
- 20001208X05278
- Case number
- LAX96FA122
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 4f21c7447f44aed99e656dbc53628ae683e110a68b7365ab3a5cacb4b428ee33; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:53:09.332Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N27989; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, LVAA.