LAX05LA223 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (YUM) to Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (YUM)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05LA223
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N9254J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (YUM), Yuma, AZTo Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (YUM)
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Distance/altitude, misjudged
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 an airport perimeter fence short of the runway during landing and nosed over. While on final approach with the flaps fully extended and the throttle at 1,700 rpm, the airplane began descending rapidly. The pilot retracted the flaps 10 degrees and applied full power. The airplane continued to descend until it struck the airport perimeter fence and nosed over. The pilot reported that this was his first flight with three passengers on board the airplane. Weight and balance calculations showed that upon takeoff, the airplane exceeded its forward center of gravity limit by 1 inch and the gross weight was 2,347.42 pounds. During landing, the calculated center of gravity was near its forward limit, but 0.3 inches within the weight and balance envelope. The gross weight during landing was 2,257.42 pounds. The maximum gross weight for the airplane was 2,400 pounds.
Probable cause
the pilot's misjudged distance and altitude, which resulted in an undershoot and collision with a airport boundary fence short of the runway. A factor in the accident was the pilot's lack of familiarity flying the airplane at a high gross weight with a center of gravity near the forward limit, which would have affected the elevator control forces and the amount of nose up elevator available.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05LA223
- Event ID
- 20050706X00937
- Case number
- LAX05LA223
- 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: fbd0dc6eb54ede5da7b307192cd65eb868e1842b6cb9e5964a0a84c4b3358ff1; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:41:40.100Z.