CEN12LA229 · Piper PA-34-200T
Piper PA-34-200T · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Dimmit County Airport (CZT) to San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA229
- 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-34-200T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N1162X
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dimmit County Airport (CZT), Carrizo Springs, TXTo San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI), San Marcos, TX
- 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
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot called the Flight Service Station (FSS) before departing on a cross-country flight to ask if there were any restrictions along his flight route that he needed to be aware of; none were mentioned. Upon arrival at his destination about dusk, the pilot listened to the Automated Terminal Information Service (ATIS); the control tower was closed at the time. The pilot then landed the airplane on runway 8, and during the landing roll, the airplane struck construction barriers on the runway, which resulted in the main landing gear shearing off and substantial damage to the left wing. The ATIS recording did not include information about runway 8 being closed.
A March 21, 2012, NOTAM was in effect and stated that runway 8/26 was closed due to construction; this information was not provided or requested during the FSS briefing. The Airman’s Information Manual states that an FSS is required to advise pilots of pertinent NOTAMs if a standard briefing is requested. It further states that pilot's should remind the briefer to advise of NOTAMs if the information is not received in the brief. It is ultimately the pilot’s responsibility to ensure that he is familiar with all relevant NOTAMs. Further, FAA Order JO7210.3X states, in part, that facilities with runway construction must ensure ATIS message content is complete, accurate, and contains the proper information related to runway closures.
The pilot stated postaccident that reflective ribbons and directional flashing lights, could have helped him see the barrier. He also stated that he flew into the same airport about a week after the accident and noted that the runway closure was included on the ATIS recording.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to ensure that he was aware of the NOTAM describing the runway closure, which resulted in a landing on the closed runway and subsequent collision with a barrier. Contributing to the accident was the failure of air traffic control personnel to include the runway closure information on the recorded ATIS information, which the pilot had listened to prior to landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA229
- Event ID
- 20120405X40552
- Case number
- CEN12LA229
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-04-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cd2ffec845f71d7a581a6a25e39017b3135561af6fb0c4d8bdd32d19fa5eb7d2; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:40:20.950Z.