MKC84LA022 · Piper PA-32RT-3
Piper PA-32RT-3 · Accident: hard landing
From Des Moines International Airport (DSM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC84LA022
- 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-32RT-3
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N8229A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Des Moines International Airport (DSM), Des Moines, IATo 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING ARRIVAL FROM VFR-ON-TOP, THE PLT WAS GIVEN RADAR VECTORS FOR THE NDB APCH. THE PLT STATED THAT HE WAS IN THE CLOUDS DURING THE APCH FOR ONLY ABOUT 5 TO 8 MIN. HE REPORTED THAT APRX 1/2 MI OUT ON FINAL APCH, THE NOSE BECAME PROGRESSIVELY HEAVY AND THE AIRSPEED GAGE WAS INDICATING 90 KTS. A GO-AROUND WAS STARTED. REPORTEDLY, THE AIRSPEED INCREASED TO 92 KTS, BUT THE NOSE PITCHED FURTHER DOWN. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN HARD, NOSEWHEEL FIRST, BOUNCED & STRUCK THE RWY. THE NOSEWHEEL COLLAPSED DURING THE LANDING & THE ACFT CAME TO REST JUST OFF THE RWY. REPORTEDLY, PRX 1/8 INCH OF ICE ACCUMULATION WAS FOUND ON THE LEADING EDGES OF THE WINGS. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED NO FLT CONTROL PROBLEMS. THE PLT BELIEVED THAT ICE HAD ACCUMULATED ON THE PITOT TUBE. HE STATED THAT THE PITOT HEAD WAS SLOW TO HEAT AFTER THE ACCIDENT. ACCORDING TO HIM, THE ACFT ACTED LIKE IT WAS FLYING AT ONLY 75 TO 80 KTS WHEN IT TOUCHED DOWN HARD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC84LA022
- Event ID
- 20001214X45162
- Case number
- MKC84LA022
- 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: 1058e716a9a55a40fc10a319faade8e081ffd82bf98d445662f65690cfdfc387; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:06:31.446Z.