LAX03FA076 · Piper PA-60-601P
Piper PA-60-601P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Scottsdale Airport (SDL) to Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03FA076
- 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
- 2 · 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-60-601P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-60
- 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
- N3636Q
- Operator
- Duane E. Shrontz · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZTo Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF), Santa Fe, NM
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with mountainous terrain 5 miles from the departure airport during a dark night takeoff. Review of recorded radar data found a secondary beacon code 7267 (the code assigned to the airplane's earlier inbound arrival ) on the runway at 2021:08, with a mode C report consistent with the airport elevation. Two more secondary beacon returns were noted on/over the runway at 2021:12 and 2021:19, reporting mode C altitudes of 1,600 and 1,700 feet, respectively. Between 2021:08 and 2021:38, the secondary beacon target (still on code 7267) proceeded on a northeasterly heading of 035 degrees (runway heading) as the mode C reported altitude climbed to 2,000 feet and the computed ground speed increased to 120 knots. Between 2021:38 and 2021:52, the heading changed from an average 035 to 055 degrees as the mode C reports continued to climb at a mathematically derived 1,300 feet per minute and the ground speed increased to average of 170 knots. At 2022:23, the code 7267 target disappeared and was replaced by a 1200 code target. The mode C reports continued to climb at a mathematically derived rate of 1,200 feet per minute as the ground speed increased to the 180-knot average range. The computed average heading of 055 degrees was maintained until the last target return at 2022:53, which showed a mode C reported altitude of 3,500 feet. The accident site elevation was 3,710 feet and was 0.1 miles from the last target return. The direct point to point magnetic course between Scottsdale and Santa Fe was found to be 055 degrees. Numerous ground witnesses living at the base of the mountain where the accident occurred reported hearing the airplane and observing the aircraft's lights. The witnesses reported observations consistent with the airplane beginning a right turn when a large fireball erupted coincident with the airplane's collision with the mountain. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures were found during an examination of the wreckage. The radar data establishes that the pilot changed the transponder code from his arrival IFR assignment to the VFR code 30 seconds before impact and this may have been a distraction.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain an adequate altitude clearance from mountainous terrain. Contributing factors were dark night conditions, mountainous terrain, and the pilot's diverted attention.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03FA076
- Event ID
- 20030207X00186
- Case number
- LAX03FA076
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-01-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0dbe25d58a9129eedef01054549732f91c5e756303a144bafb7c6074b2dc0ae4; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:29:29.148Z.