CEN11WA407 · Piper PA-39
Piper PA-39 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Lucca-Tassignano Airport (LIQL) to Troyes-Barberey Airport (LFQB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11WA407
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · 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
Piper PA-39
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-39
- 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
- G-AYZE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lucca-Tassignano Airport (LIQL), LuccaTo Troyes-Barberey Airport (LFQB), Troyes
- 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
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On June 17, 2011, at 0915 coordinated universal time, a Piper PA-39, United Kingdom registered G-AYZE, owned and piloted by the accident pilot, was destroyed when it impacted terrain near Mont Agel, France. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The pilot and one passenger were fatally injured. The flight originated from Lucca (LIQL), Italy, and was en route to Troyes Barberey (LFQB), France.
The French investigators have reported that the airplane was flying under visual flight rules conditions and impacted mountainous terrain obscured by clouds.
The accident investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the French government. This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information released by or obtained from the French government or Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses Zone Sud 200 rue de Paris Aêroport du Bourget 93350 Le Bourget Cedex France
Probable cause
Under the jurisdiction and control of the French government.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11WA407
- Event ID
- 20110620X70250
- Case number
- CEN11WA407
- 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: 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: e0b07014b5f4aecc82e1e7cedb3b5622d142448e22395b37a596833b2642eccc; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:28:28.421Z.