C/O CSC Services of Nevada Gulfstream American G-1159A incident
Gulfstream American G-1159A · Incident during landing
From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE) to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05IA049
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Gulfstream American G-1159A
- Aircraft type
- Gulfstream American G-1159
- 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
- N111FA
- Operator
- C/O CSC Services of Nevada
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, FLTo Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, CO
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › Wrong runway, inadvertent use
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the captain, he was cleared for a visual approach to runway 17L, which was confirmed and acknowledged. Approximately 30 seconds prior to landing, he was advised to "go around or sidestep" to runway 17R. He accepted the "sidestep" and was cleared to land runway 17R. The captain continued the approach, sidestepped to runway 17R and landed. After landing, the tower advised the captain that he had landed on taxiway Bravo. According to a witness who had completed several approaches after the Gulfstream, runway 17L and taxiway Bravo, were both "clean and clear," and runway 17R was snow covered. Taxiway Bravo is positioned between runway 17L and runway 17R. The "black" surface of runway 17L and taxiway Bravo created a "strong" contrast with the surrounding snow covered ground. Runway 17R had much less of a contrast due to the snow that remained on it. The airport's notices to airman (NOTAM) did not identify that runway 17R was snow covered.
Probable cause
the flight crew's misidentification of the parallel taxiway as an active runway, resulting in the flight crew executing a landing on the taxiway. Contributing factors include the airport's inadequate snow removal, the snow-covered runway, the visual illusions created by the airport surface environment, and the flight crew's airport familiarization.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05IA049
- Event ID
- 20050124X00098
- Case number
- DEN05IA049
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, damage. 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: 5739e39fc5de7d557379739cd6e9c318bde94f12e3ba8e8806c8405c54f9f5c3; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:09:03.518Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N111FA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.