DEN04LA009 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport (AMA) to Double Eagle II Airport (AEG)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04LA009
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N891GP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport (AMA), Amarillo, TXTo Double Eagle II Airport (AEG), Albuquerque, 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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(cfi) › Aircraft control, 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
According to the certified flight instructor (CFI), they were stopping for fuel. The private pilot, flying the airplane from the left seat, was attempting to land on runway 08. During the landing flare, a wind gust caused the airplane to drift left of the runway centerline. The private pilot corrected the left drift, pulled the throttle, and continued to land. The CFI stated that upon touchdown, the airplane "immediately veered hard to the left about a 60 degree angle." At that point the CFI added power and initiated a go-around. During the attempted go-around, the private pilot pulled the throttle a second time. The CFI said that he then "took control of the airplane and put the power back in for a go-around." He said he managed to get the airplane airborne, but was not attempting to correct for the drift because they were too "low and slow." As the airplane approached the end of the runway, the airplane began to mush and the right main landing gear struck a patch of sagebrush. The airplane struck the ground and bounced a few feet before impacting a dirt berm.
Probable cause
the CFI's failure to maintain aircraft control during a go-around resulting in an inadvertent stall/mush and impact with terrain. Contributing factors include the CFI's inadequate supervision, the private pilot's delayed relinquishing of control, and the inadvertent stall/mush.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04LA009
- Event ID
- 20031017X01764
- Case number
- DEN04LA009
- 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, coordinates. 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: 41084ad405b75c2859d82aa2e451fe088cc1ef00fd89ba43e29223cad1a15444; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:21:03.817Z.