LAX05LA063 · Cessna 340
Cessna 340 · Accident: overrun during landing
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Sky Ranch At Carefree Airport (18AZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05LA063
- 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
Cessna 340
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 340
- 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
- N340CS
- Operator
- Timothy P. Moyer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Sky Ranch At Carefree Airport (18AZ), Carefree, AZ
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Throttle/power control, improper use of
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 overran the departure end of the runway during an aborted landing attempt and collided with a ditch. The pilot stated that the winds were variable at about 3 knots. He set up for landing on runway 24, which had been identified by the airport as the preferred calm wind runway. After a normal touchdown he applied the brakes, which felt mushy. He decided to go around. After adding power, the left engine went into an over-boost condition so he reduced the power, kept the airplane on the ground, and applied brakes. The pilot was unable to stop the airplane and it ran off the end of the runway and collided with a ditch. According to the airport, runway 24 is a downhill runway with about a 1.9 percent slope. Airframe and engine examinations were conducted following recovery of the airplane from the accident site. There were no mechanical discrepancies noted with the airframe. The aircraft brake system was inspected. The left main gear was folded into the wheel well and could not be visually examined. Pressure was applied to the left rudder/brake pedal and normal resistance was felt. The hydraulic brake line was loosened at the left wing root connection and fluid was observed coming out of the line with pedal application. The right hydraulic line was disconnected at the wing root during recovery operations. Pressure was applied to the brake pedal and a "gurgling" sound was detected at the line opening and fluid was observed coming out of the line. The right side brakes were then disassembled. No deep grooving was observed on the disc, which had a measured thickness of 0.687 inches. The three brake back plates had thicknesses of approximately 0.125, 0.156, and 0.125 inches, respectively. The spark plugs from both engines exhibited coloration consistent with operation in the normal range. The electrodes were normal to slightly worn in appearance. Normal range compression was developed in each engine's cylinders with manual rotation of the crankshafts. A visual borescope inspection of the cylinders on the left engine revealed no evidence of detonation. The turbocharger system was removed and functionally checked.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper use of the throttles during an aborted landing attempt that resulted in an engine over-boost condition requiring a reduction in power that then resulted in a runway overrun and collision with a ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05LA063
- Event ID
- 20050120X00086
- Case number
- LAX05LA063
- 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 2005-01-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4e47ec499b421be507c7e93b2cfc994b8778fcc6a59372e0063ac33de28df3a7; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:22:26.545Z.