DEN00LA039 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
From 4AC to Mid Valley Airpark (E98)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN00LA039
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6034P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4ACTo Mid Valley Airpark (E98), Los Lunas, NM
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Ignition system, magneto › Engaged
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not complied with
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was parked on the ramp and the pilot unsuccessfully attempted to start the airplane's engine due to the cold temperature. He exited the airplane to turn the propeller to loosen it without intending to start it. He neglected to turn off the magnetos. The engine started and the pilot was struck in the head and the right elbow by the propeller. According to an excerpt from the starting section of the 1959 PA-24-250 Airplane Flight Manual, 'When the engine is cold (under 40 degrees F.), prime three to five strokes; if extremely cold, pull the propeller through by hand four to six times before turning on the key ignition to 'left' and engaging the starter button.'
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to comply with proper procedures for engine startup by failing to disengage the magneto prior to hand-turning the propeller.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN00LA039
- Event ID
- 20001212X20348
- Case number
- DEN00LA039
- 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, damage. 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: 628519f7057455f1581016785461d7c64b92de7dab98bbf8af184bb35d39d7c1; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:43:55.228Z.