WPR13LA210 · Piper PA46-500TP
Piper PA46-500TP · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From Bryce Canyon Airport (BCE) to 36U · Heber City, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA210
- 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 PA46-500TP
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA46
- 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
- N2589U
- Operator
- Richard Alden
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bryce Canyon Airport (BCE), Bryce, UTTo 36U · Heber City, UT
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2013)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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 pilot reported that, during the takeoff roll, as the airplane was about 80 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS) and as he was pulling the control yoke back per his normal practice, the airplane lifted off the runway, but it would not climb higher than about 10 to 20 ft above ground level. He further reported that the takeoff rotation occurred about 3,100 ft down the 7,395-ft-long runway, that the airplane's nose rose to a higher pitch attitude than expected, and that the tail felt heavy or "squishy." The pilot reduced the throttle setting to lower the airplane's nose, but the airplane entered a left yaw with the left wing down. The pilot reapplied full throttle, but the airplane rolled slightly left. At this point, the airplane was over the dirt area between the main runway and the adjacent taxiway. The pilot suspected that the main landing gear dragged at different points with the airplane's nose still in a high-pitch attitude. The fuselage struck the ground, and the airplane subsequently slid to a stop. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
According to the Pilot's Operating Handbook, given the reported meteorological conditions at the time of takeoff, the airplane's normal rotation speed would have been 82 KIAS for a 0-degree flap configuration at the maximum gross weight of 5,092 lbs, and the liftoff speed would have been 85 KIAS; the airplane's computed gross weight at the time of the accident was 5,218 lbs. In addition, the normal takeoff ground roll would have been 3,150 ft, and 4,800 ft would have been required to clear a 50-ft obstacle. Based on the evidence, it is likely that the pilot rotated the airplane at a slower airspeed than the published normal rotation speed with the airplane over its maximum gross weight limit and that the airplane was unable to climb after liftoff. The airplane's high-pitch attitude also likely prevented it from accelerating once the airplane lifted off.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to establish the minimum liftoff speed during takeoff with the airplane over its maximum gross weight, which resulted in the airplane’s failure to climb and a subsequent loss of directional control and a runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA210
- Event ID
- 20130428X31009
- Case number
- WPR13LA210
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2013-04-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aa94fb1848d0fcbd0c4b17e84f64cf6e83e5a69eaef2aed6b8adcb6a5cbfa675; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:21:55.821Z.