CEN09CA479 · Piper PA28-151
Piper PA28-151 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From David Jay Perry Airport (1K4) to David Jay Perry Airport (1K4)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA479
- 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 PA28-151
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N41930
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From David Jay Perry Airport (1K4), Goldsby, OKTo David Jay Perry Airport (1K4), Goldsby, 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot stated that he had practiced a simulated loss of engine power to a field near the Canadian River. After finishing the practice approach, witnesses observed the airplane flying north to south about 30 feet above the river. They observed the airplane climb and fly over the East Washington Street Bridge, which spans the river between Purcell, Oklahoma and Lexington, Oklahoma. The airplane then descended back down into the river bottom, hit power lines that crossed over the river, and then came to rest in the river about one mile south of the bridge. Portions of the horizontal stabilizer and the wing had separated from the fuselage. The pilot was seriously injured. An examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to see and avoid the power lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA479
- Event ID
- 20090731X92346
- Case number
- CEN09CA479
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-07-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 48c0ac8218a5942cbc7103885543737bf3e2b8574644ff09026ca3db4f9532c4; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:06:23.809Z.