FTW97LA125 · Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201
Flight Training Center Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201 · Accident en route
From FTG · WATKINS, CO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA125
- 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-28R-201T PA-28R-201
- 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
- N38703
- Operator
- Flight Training Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FTG · WATKINS, COTo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Distance/speed, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight, the pilot noticed oil on the windshield. He decided to make a forced landing on a dirt road. He said his approach speed was 10 knots higher than normal 'to avoid obstructions,' and he did not use flaps 'because I would not have made it to the road.' The pilot soon realized he was going too fast and would overshoot the road, so he turned towards an adjoining field. He maneuvered the airplane over a buffalo herd and landed. During the landing roll the airplane collided with a fence, rupturing the right wing fuel tank. It was discovered the oil filler cap was missing. The pilot said he checked the oil during preflight and it was 'about one-third down from the top' (about 6 quarts; capacity is 8 quarts). The oil filler cap 'was easily visible and in place,' but he did not physically check it for security. The oil filler cap was eventually located in a recess atop the right bank of cylinders where it had fallen. When the engine was later examined, 3 quarts of oil remained in the crankcase.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudging the proper touchdown point on the dirt road due to excessive airspeed and his failure to deploy flaps. Factors were the partial loss of engine lubricating oil due to the oil filler cap separating because some unknown person failed to properly secure it, and the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA125
- Event ID
- 20001208X07535
- Case number
- FTW97LA125
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-03-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3af921d15d17e90703bbaea1b4364f700301b871d73ac1d7375998e4d002f43f; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:12:50.620Z.