DEN06LA113 · Piper PA-23-160
Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF) to Ponca City Regional Airport (PNC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06LA113
- 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-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N245TB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF), Santa Fe, NMTo Ponca City Regional Airport (PNC), Ponca City, OK
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/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
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, delayed
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to takeoff, the run-up revealed no anomalies. After the pilot received takeoff clearance for runway 2 (8,342 feet long by 150 feet wide), he applied full power and checked the propeller controls to confirm they were full forward. The pilot reported, "After a few seconds of full power, it seemed the aircraft was sluggish to develop airspeed in order to reach rotation speed of 64 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS). [The pilot] assumed it was due to the density altitude and full fuel." After rotation at "red line Vx speed," the pilot lowered the airplane's nose in an attempt to obtain "blue line" airspeed; however, the airplane would not accelerate beyond Vx speed. The pilot felt "the engines were not producing full power." Subsequently, the pilot elected to abort the takeoff and attempted to land back on the remaining runway. The aircraft landed on the runway with the gear retracted. The pilot noted no anomalies on the engine instruments during the attempted takeoff. Examination of the airframe and engines revealed no anomalies. The calculated density altitude was 8,180 feet mean sea level. According to the NTSB Pilot Aircraft Accident Report (NTSB Form 6120.1), Recommendation (How could this accident have been prevented) section, the pilot reported, "Should have aborted take off earlier on ground roll."
Probable cause
the pilot's improper decision to continue the attempted takeoff when Vx airspeed was not obtained, and failure to abort the takeoff during ground roll which resulted in an impact on the remaining runway with the landing gear retracted. A contributing factor was the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06LA113
- Event ID
- 20060830X01258
- Case number
- DEN06LA113
- 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: 90b505d5ccbc105adc37082d2430a8653ac6f9ef410f193eed0da29911afdf52; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:35:39.151Z.