CEN14LA080 · Piper Aircraft Inc PA46 500TP
Deekay Piper Aircraft Inc PA46 500TP · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Tucson International Airport (TUS) to Double Eagle II Airport (AEG)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA080
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper Aircraft Inc 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
- N220JE
- Operator
- Deekay
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZTo Double Eagle II Airport (AEG), Albuquerque, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- 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, as the airplane approached the destination airport, it began to accumulate ice; he cycled the anti-icing boots, which effectively cleared the wings. He chose to fly the approach at a higher-than-normal airspeed and with no flaps. The pilot also reported that, when he lowered the landing gear, he noted that the main landing gear, which normally extend at the same time, extended at different rates. While on final approach, a tower air traffic controller informed the pilot that the wind had shifted and that a quartering tailwind existed. The controller asked the pilot if he wanted to circle to a more favorable runway, but the pilot chose to land on the original runway instead of maneuvering at low altitude with ice on the airplane. The pilot reported that, as the airplane touched down, it felt as if it "was on glare ice" and that his efforts to control the airplane were unsuccessful. The airplane exited the right side of the runway, and both main landing gear collapsed.
During postaccident examination of the airplane, manual manipulation of the rudder revealed limited travel of both the nose landing gear steering system and the rudder. Given that the pilot did not report any difficulties with the airplane's ground handling during the taxi and takeoff at the departure airport, it is likely that the limited travel was due to fuselage damage near the control cable routing that was incurred during the accident.
The pilot reported that the runway was "dry" and "ice covered." The airport manager reported that the runway might have had some patches of ice but that it was not ice covered. Further, weather information indicated that only 0.01 inch of precipitation had occurred at the airport in the preceding 7 days; therefore, it is unlikely that the runway was covered with ice at the time of the landing. The pilot likely lost directional control during landing due to his inadequate compensation for the quartering tailwind.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of directional control during landing due to his inadequate compensation for the tailwind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA080
- Event ID
- 20131210X02431
- Case number
- CEN14LA080
- 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: 48cfee006662016c526b267ee39d529c7da5ab468892bd63fc710a739e433fc7; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:10:33.597Z.