DEN05FA045 · Piper PA-31P
Piper PA-31P · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU) to Newton City-County Airport (EWK)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05FA045
- 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
- 1 · 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-31P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N573B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU), Glendale, AZTo Newton City-County Airport (EWK), Newton, 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Wire, transmission; Tree(s)
- 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 › 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
While maneuvering during a precautionary landing with the right engine shutdown, the airplane entered a Vmc roll and an uncontrolled descent, and impacted wires, trees, and terrain. According to air traffic control communications, while en route the pilot experienced a rough running right engine and performed a precautionary shutdown of the engine. The pilot elected to divert to an airport and received vectors from air traffic control for a visual approach. Witnesses who were located at the airport reported the airplane was on a normal downwind for the runway. When the airplane reached the approach end of the runway, the pilot turned to the right which was away from the airport. A witness who was monitoring the UNICOM frequency informed the pilot he was turning away from the airport and the pilot responded, "Busy." The airplane continued the right turn subsequently entered a Vmc roll and a rapid descent toward the terrain. The airplane wreckage was located on hilly, rocky terrain approximately 3 miles south of the airport. The airplane was fragmented and destroyed during the impact sequence and post-impact fire. Examination of the airframe and propellers revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operations. Examination of the left engine revealed the forward gearbox was destroyed and mechanical continuity of the rotating components and internal mechanisms was established. Examination of the right engine revealed the forward gearbox was destroyed and mechanical continuity of the rotating components and internal mechanisms was established. The reason for the reported rough running engine was not determined. The lifters installed in both engines during the overhauls were not approved lifters for the accident engines.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain minimum controllable airspeed which resulted in the loss of control, and impact with wires, a tree and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05FA045
- Event ID
- 20050104X00007
- Case number
- DEN05FA045
- 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: ce48878f0edd03dce03ab23a6ceeb4f8b1bb4b1f29e452b51132efcabf86c6e6; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:10:06.449Z.