CEN09LA116 · Learjet 45XR
Aero Jet Services Learjet 45XR · Accident: loss of visual reference during landing
From KDSL · Scottsdale, AZ to Telluride Regional Airport (KTEX)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA116
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Learjet 45XR
- Aircraft type
- Learjet 45
- 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
- N279AJ
- Operator
- Aero Jet Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From KDSL · Scottsdale, AZTo Telluride Regional Airport (KTEX), Telluride, 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 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
- Defining eventThe 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 visual reference
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane and two-person crew departed on a positioning flight. The pilot-in-command was not flying the airplane and sat in the right seat. The second-in-command was the pilot flying and sat in the left seat. The accident occurred on the second attempt to land at the destination airport on a snow-covered runway. While descending for the airport, the pilot not flying the airplane called the runway in sight. After assessing that they were too high the pilot not flying convinced the pilot flying to circle the airplane down to land on the runway. Circling at speeds greater than allowed by the approach categories, the crew performed a 360-degree turn to align themselves with the runway. The pilot flying did not have the runway in sight, and was verbally assisted by the pilot not flying. Both pilots stated that they were aligned with the center of the runway. During the flare to touchdown the pilot flying reported an unexpected gust of wind from the left requiring a correction. The airplane touched down about 20 feet off and to the right of the runway edge. Substantial damage was sustained to the airplane's wing and fuselage.
Probable cause
The failure of both pilots to positively identify the runway prior to landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA116
- Event ID
- 20090104X34242
- Case number
- CEN09LA116
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: 4835b36d4c7524c06ca1fec4195ae6ade6ab4e3186fdef5b13a7a3a811b16cac; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:39:48.500Z.