WPR12LA076 · Piper PA28 181
TransPac Aviation Academy Piper PA28 181 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Gila Bend Municipal Airport (E63) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA076
- 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 181
- 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
- N4175V
- Operator
- TransPac Aviation Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gila Bend Municipal Airport (E63), Gila Bend, AZTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot planned to conduct a solo cross-country flight with intermediate stops at two other airports before returning to the flight school base airport. The taxi, takeoff, flight, and touchdown of the first leg were normal. However, during the landing roll, the airplane pulled right, but the pilot was able to keep the airplane on the runway. The pilot stopped the airplane but did not shut down the engine or exit the airplane. Instead, he leaned out the door of the low-wing airplane to check for anomalies. He did not report seeing anything unusual; however, the wing would have blocked his view of the landing gear. He then taxied the airplane, departed, and did not experience any anomalies or difficulties with the airplane during that departure and flight. However, the student was concerned about the event at the first destination, so he opted not to land at the second planned destination, and, instead, he circled a few times and then headed toward the base airport. Although the flight school encouraged students to solicit assistance in the event of off-site problems and the pilot could have contacted the school via radio, he did not do so nor did he explain why he did not do so. The landing at the base airport was normal until the nose gear touched down, and the airplane subsequently veered right and departed the runway. The airplane struck a runway distance sign and a berm, which substantially damaged the nose and right main landing gear. Postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any preexisting mechanical malfunctions or failures with the landing gear that would have precluded normal operation, but impact damage to the landing gear precluded a determination of the braking and steering systems' preaccident condition and functionality. Review of maintenance records indicated that the airplane had operated normally in the several months since its most recent landing gear and steering system maintenance. Subsequent to the accident, the flight school provided students with mobile phones to improve their ability to contact the flight school in the event of off-site problems or difficulties.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inability to maintain directional control during the landing roll for reasons that could not be determined because impact damage precluded determination of the preaccident functionality of the braking and steering systems.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA076
- Event ID
- 20120108X24231
- Case number
- WPR12LA076
- 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: a87d6cf7b2ffef50705427799aee236821a5f562233c440661aaf048a1d6656d; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:02:58.373Z.