CEN11LA574 · Piper PA-31-310
Piper PA-31-310 · Accident: explosion (non-impact) while standing
From Perryton Ochiltree County Airport (PYX) to Shawnee Regional Airport (SNL)
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
- CEN11LA574
- 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-31-310
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N46TB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Perryton Ochiltree County Airport (PYX), Shawnee, TXTo Shawnee Regional Airport (SNL), Shawnee, 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Explosion (non-impact)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing pretakeoff cockpit checks at the end of the runway when an explosion under his seat propelled his head into the ceiling. He saw flames inside the airplane and exited through the cabin door. The unoccupied airplane moved forward and was completely engulfed in flames when it stopped moving, about 400 feet from the place the explosion occurred. Firefighters arrived about 10 minutes later and put out the fire. The airplane was substantially damaged by the fire. An examination of the wreckage did not disclose any preaccident malfunctions or anomalies that would have prevented normal operation. The reason for the explosion and fire could not be determined.
Probable cause
The explosion and subsequent fire in the airplane for undetermined reasons because an examination of the burned airplane could not identify any preaccident anomolies.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA574
- Event ID
- 20110815X30941
- Case number
- CEN11LA574
- 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: 43e8bb18a1515e625d1f4f3362d41b5366568f2b65ba65d47413aaa1fa0b7637; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:36:48.805Z.