CEN15FA325 · Piper PA-28-151
Piper PA-28-151 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Truth or Consequences Municipal Airport (TCS) to Truth or Consequences Municipal Airport (TCS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15FA325
- 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
- 2 · 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-28-151
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N32401
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Truth or Consequences Municipal Airport (TCS), Truth or Consequences, NMTo Truth or Consequences Municipal Airport (TCS), Truth or Consequences, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1974)
- 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
- Approach
- 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 in flight
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The fixed-base operator spoke to the student pilot about 1600 the day before the accident, left the airfield about 1700, and returned the following morning at 0700. When he arrived at the airport, he noticed that the accident airplane was gone. The airplane wreckage with the noninstrument-rated student pilot and passenger on board was found several days later in very sparsely populated area with large, unlit areas; a watch found at the accident site was stopped at 0122, which is likely when the accident occurred. The initial impact point was consistent with the airplane impacting terrain in a near-vertical attitude while the pilot was likely either maneuvering toward or attempting to approach the airport. A postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any preimpact anomalies.
Meteorological and astrological conditions on the night of the accident included a clear sky with no moon illumination, which would have required the pilot to use celestial and cultural lights and the airfield's pilot-controlled lighting for orientation. However, it could not be determined if the pilot activated the runway lighting. The student did not have any endorsements for solo night flights, and his night flight experience could not be determined. The pilot's improper decision to conduct a flight in challenging dark night conditions likely led to his subsequent loss of airplane control and collision with terrain.
Although toxicological testing detected ethanol in the pilot's specimens, it was determined that the ethanol likely resulted from sources other than ingestion.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper decision to conduct a flight in dark night conditions without a solo night flight endorsement and his subsequent loss of airplane control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15FA325
- Event ID
- 20150729X33718
- Case number
- CEN15FA325
- 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: 5ebed91e5248dcf377545fede1ee866dcf518096386a37efe8ce33fa9415bca1; retrieved 2026-09-14T19:47:13.670Z.