FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

CHI02LA056 · Piper PA-32-300

25 Dec 2001 · Olathe, KS, United States

Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing

From Johnson County Executive Airport (OJC) to Johnson County Executive Airport (OJC)

Report a problem

Event

NTSB case
CHI02LA056
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
Unknown
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-32-300

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
N666DE
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Johnson County Executive Airport (OJC), Olathe, KSTo Johnson County Executive Airport (OJC)
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
Loss of control on ground/water
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 › Directional control, not maintained

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Olathe, KS, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

The airplane was damaged when it went off of the left side of the runway, crossed a parallel taxiway and went down an embankment during landing. The pilot stated that when he applied the brakes during the landing, "...it felt like the left brake 'grabbed' and jerked me to the left. While still on the runway I applied power and right rudder to try to straighten me out. I immediately [went] left very quickly on to the grass." Subsequent to the accident, the nose landing gear fork was found fractured in two places near the attachment to the strut portion of the landing gear. No other anomalies were found with respect to the airplane, or its systems that were determined to have existed prior to impact. The nose landing gear fork was examined by the National Transportation Safety Board's Materials Laboratory. The fork was found to have deformation consistent with excessive lateral loading. The fracture surfaces were examined and both fractures exhibited signatures consistent with overstress. No evidence of fatigue or preexisting damage was found.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing resulting in the overload of the nose gear fork. The overload failure of the nose landing gear fork, the embankment, and the remedial action not possible were contributing factors.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CHI02LA056
Event ID
20011227X02446
Case number
CHI02LA056
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: d4e62d70911adef9cce2a6a58884014e3f618b7080cc8b2e5c9d242b495a172d; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:13:47.528Z.