CEN10LA529 · Piper Aerostar 601P
Piper Aerostar 601P · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Reedsburg Municipal Airport (C35) to Baraboo Wisconsin Dells Regional Airport (DLL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA529
- 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 Aerostar 601P
- Aircraft type
- Piper AEROSTAR 601
- 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
- N601PP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reedsburg Municipal Airport (C35), Reedsburg, WITo Baraboo Wisconsin Dells Regional Airport (DLL), Baraboo, WI
- 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was on approach to the destination airport when the pilot noticed a differential reading between the left and right engine cylinder/exhaust temperatures. While preparing to land, he moved his seat back to be able to better view the gauges located on the right side of the instrument panel. While the pilot was recording the gauge indications on paper, the airplane's airspeed decreased, the sink rate increased, and the airplane descended and impacted trees and a corn field.
Probable cause
The pilot's diverted attention during an approach for landing that resulted in an altitude loss and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA529
- Event ID
- 20100909X45640
- Case number
- CEN10LA529
- 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: 79c094b09345704bb45f4d3bde593c973cab4b64e43b401d99c59bb3ab260832; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:08:44.510Z.