SEA89LA077 · Piper PA-38-112
Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From 45D · Reno, NV to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89LA077
- 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-38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-38
- 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
- N4439E
- Operator
- Eugene E. Thebus · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 45D · Reno, NVTo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
- 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 · aborted
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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(cfi) › Aborted landing, delayed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUCTOR PLT (CFI) ELECTED TO DEMONSTRATE A SOFT FIELD LANDING AT AN UNIMPROVED RANCH STRIP. AS HE WAS ABOUT TO LAND, HE SAW MOUNDS OF SOFT DIRT ON THE STRIP & INCREASED POWER TO 'CARRY THE GLIDE BEYOND THEM.' SUBSEQUENTLY, HE REALIZED THERE WAS INSUFFICIENT RWY REMAINING TO COMPLETE THE LANDING, SO HE INITIATED A GO-AROUND. HE APPLIED FULL POWER & RAISED THE ACFT'S NOSE TO CLEAR A FENCE, BUT THE ACFT LOST FLYING SPEED & SETTLED INTO A FIELD BEYOND THE LANDING AREA. THE LANDING GEAR THEN HIT AN IRRIGATION PIPE & WAS DAMAGED.
Probable cause
A DELAY BY THE PILOT IN ABORTING THE LANDING AND HIS FAILURE TO ASSURE SUFFICIENT AIRSPEED FOR THE GO-AROUND (ABORTED LANDING). A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: THE UNSUITABLE LANDING AREA THAT WAS SELECTED BY THE PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89LA077
- Event ID
- 20001213X28429
- Case number
- SEA89LA077
- 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: c4352edbad561a6108f036f535c3e7e28d566d07caca541db71c2df3c6c57dc8; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:39:07.889Z.