DEN83FA111 · Piper PA28R-201T
Piper PA28R-201T · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Centennial Airport (APA) to Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83FA111
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA28R-201T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N2943Z
- Operator
- James Elwood & Ken Lowe Arct
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, COTo Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP), Topeka, KS
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Electrical system › Failure, total
- Electrical system, battery › Failure, total
- Electrical system, battery › Overload
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RECEIVED A JUMP START BECAUSE THE BATTERY FAILED TO START THE ENG. AFTER DEPARTURE & LEVELING OF AT 10,000 FT, HE WAS CONCERNED WITH THE 1 INCH OF RIME ICE HE HAD PICKED UP & GOT AN UPDATED WX BRIEFING FROM FLT WATCH. HE ASKED FOR & RECEIVED A CLEARANCE BACK TO ARAPAHOE ARPT. DURING LETDOWN TOTAL ELECTRICAL FAILURE OCCURRED. AFTER BREAKING OUT OF THE OVERCAST HE WAS ABLE TO LOCATE COLUMBINE ARPT. WHILE FLYING IN & OUT OF CLOUDS THE ACFT LANDED SHORT OF THE RWY DURING THE 2ND LANDING ATTEMPT. ABOUT 1-1/2 INCHES OF ICE HAD ACCUMULATED ON THE ACFT. EXAM OF THE BATTERY REVEALED THATIT HAD BEEN EXPOSED TO VERY HIGH OPERATING TEMPS. THE 6 CELLS WERE DRY. THE TOP OF THE BATTERY BORE EVIDENCE OF PAINT BUBBLING & CASE DISTORTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83FA111
- Event ID
- 20001214X42938
- Case number
- DEN83FA111
- 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: 653dea0638c5c2aed8bbf0bdf89cf7dc95225625c3eeb47f1fee9eea7cad5786; retrieved 2026-09-23T22:16:25.025Z.