LAX92LA077 · Piper PA46-310P
Piper PA46-310P · Accident: undershoot during landing
From Owyhee Hospital Heliport (NV11) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA077
- 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 PA46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA46
- 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
- N9GF
- Operator
- Ferdon, Arnold G. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Owyhee Hospital Heliport (NV11), Dayton, NVTo 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
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Descent, excessive
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED PRIVATE PILOT, THE SOLE OCCUPANT, WAS LANDING AFTER CONDUCTING TOUCH AND GO TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS. DURING THE FINAL LANDING APPROACH, THE PILOT FAILED TO ARREST THE EXCESSIVE SINK AND THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT 12 INCHES SHORT OF THE PAVED END OF THE RUNWAY. THE PAVED RUNWAY WAS ABOUT 6 INCHES ABOVE THE SURROUNDING UNPAVED AREA. WHEN THE RIGHT LANDING GEAR STRUCK THE LIP OF THE RUNWAY, THE STRUT WAS BENT AFT ABOUT 20 DEGREES AND THE RIGHT WING RECEIVED STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. THE FAA ADVISORY CIRCULAR RECOMMENDS THAT THE RUNWAY LIP DISTANCE TO THE SURROUNDING RUNWAY SAFETY AREA IS 1 AND 1/2 INCHES FOR DRAINAGE, WITH A MAXIMUM RECOMMENDED DISTANCE OF 3 INCHES. THE AIRPORT PERSONNEL FAILED TO MAINTAIN THESE RECOMMENDED DISTANCES.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO ARREST AN EXCESSIVE SINK RATE RESULTING IN NOT ATTAINING THE PROPER TOUCH DOWN POINT AND LANDING SHORT OF THE RUNWAY THRESHOLD. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS AN EXCESSIVE RUNWAY END LIP DUE TO INADEQUATE RUNWAY END MAINTENANCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA077
- Event ID
- 20001212X18630
- Case number
- LAX92LA077
- 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: e5f8d15ead6ec5edd913fb3c4b44644fe3c10818a0f70ec75e64c5cb7741db4b; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:27:45.382Z.