WPR11LA313 · Piper PA 46-350P
Piper PA 46-350P · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA313
- 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 46-350P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N9246M
- Operator
- Karen Slakey
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG), Flagstaff, AZ
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 power plant
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After touchdown, the airplane veered to the left when the nose gear was lowered to the runway. The pilot attempted to maintain directional control; however, the airplane continued to veer to the left and departed the runway. Examination of the airplane revealed that the nose landing gear had collapsed, and the engine mount was fractured at one of the two attachment feet for the nose landing gear actuator. Metallurgical examination of the fractured attachment foot revealed that it had failed as a result of fatigue cracking that initiated at the intersection of two welds that joined two of the engine mount’s support tubes to the right attachment foot. The fatigue cracking progressed along the toe of the weld that joined the forward support tube to the attachment foot. The location of the fatigue fracture was consistent with bending loads caused by a force directed aft by the nose gear actuator.
About 9 years prior to the accident, the airframe manufacturer issued a service bulletin requiring an inspection of the engine mount attachment feet at the first regularly scheduled maintenance event after the engine mount reached 290 hours time-in-service and thereafter every 100 hours. If cracks were observed, a new engine mount must be installed. The service bulletin also states that, despite the replacement of the engine mount, the inspections should continue. As part of the inspection procedure, the paint is removed from and around the attachment feet. After the inspection is complete, the area is covered with a corrosion prevention compound. The airframe manufacturer considers performance of the service bulletin mandatory. On April 8, 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued Safety Recommendation A-10-44, which asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to require repetitive inspections of the engine mount feet. On December 22, 2011, based on the FAA’s response that the safety risk is not sufficient to warrant issuance of an airworthiness directive to require the repetitive inspections, the NTSB classified the recommendation Closed-Unacceptable Action.
Review of the airframe maintenance records indicated the airplane’s total time at its most recent inspection was about 2,238 hours, and no entries were found indicating replacement of the engine mount or compliance with the manufacturer’s issued service bulletin. Additionally, paint was observed on and around the attachment feet, which indicates that the inspection had never been performed.
Probable cause
Fatigue failure of an engine mount attachment foot, which resulted in collapse of the nose landing gear during landing. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the owner/operator to adhere to the manufacturer's suggested engine mount inspection schedule.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA313
- Event ID
- 20110624X31210
- Case number
- WPR11LA313
- 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, 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: 74634e7a3574540570209f8b0d881601f1d3b99df42ee5b9dcfc9d39a98051fc; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:20:35.419Z.