MIA06CA072 · Piper PA32-301
Piper PA32-301 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Venice Municipal Airport (KVNC) to Key West International Airport (KEYW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06CA072
- 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 PA32-301
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N326XT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Venice Municipal Airport (KVNC), Venice, FLTo Key West International Airport (KEYW), Key West, FL
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During landing, the airplane exited the runway, and the nose gear collapsed. According to the pilot, the flight proceeded to the destination airport and with the wind from the north at "...10 or more knots. It was also very gusty..." he was cleared to land on runway 09. As the main landing gear contacted the runway the nose of the airplane "lifted unexpectedly and moved to my left. The aircraft then veered sharply to the left and off the side of the runway." The nose landing gear collapsed after it contacted a gravel area just off the runway. He further stated that he should have put in "...better wind corrections and got the aircraft pointed straight down the runway." A surface observation weather report taken at the Key West International Airport on the day of the accident at 1131, or approximately 11 minutes after the accident indicates the wind was from 350 degrees at 15 knots. No wind gusts were reported during that observation.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain directional control during the landing roll with a crosswind, resulting in collapse of the nose landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06CA072
- Event ID
- 20060419X00455
- Case number
- MIA06CA072
- 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: 55ff711d90f596411c0c42cfecd0f2280f3d67385a55ca3452bf881938d35c72; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:03:00.631Z.