DEN89LA171 · Piper PA-28-161
American Air Academy Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: overrun during landing
From Afton Municipal Airport (AFO) to 46U
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA171
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N21170
- Operator
- American Air Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Afton Municipal Airport (AFO), Afton, WYTo 46U
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS LANDING ON AN UNLIGHTED, 5700 X 50 FT, ASPHALT RWY AT NIGHT. THE ACFT OVERRAN THE RWY AND COLLIDED WITH A DITCH WHICH BROKE OFF THE LT MAIN GEAR AND DAMAGED THE WING. THE AIRPORT DIRECTORIES SHOW THE AIRPORT IS CLOSED AT NIGHT. THE ACDT OCCURRED AT 2215 AND THE SUN HAD SET AT ABOUT 2105.
Probable cause
PILOT'S DECISION TO LAND AT AN UNLIGHTED AIRPORT AT NIGHT. THE AIRCRAFT LANDED LONG AND OVERRAN THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA171
- Event ID
- 20001213X28811
- Case number
- DEN89LA171
- 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 1989-07-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: eced71a1229f8fb06f605f978be397eac79b621bec172f147508010885c70c78; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:23:35.330Z.