CEN16FA087 · Piper PA 22-108
Piper PA 22-108 · Accident: low altitude operation/event en route
From Midland Airpark (MDD) to Edwards Lucian Wells Ranch Airport (TX31)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16FA087
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 22-108
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N4751Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Midland Airpark (MDD), Midland, TXTo Edwards Lucian Wells Ranch Airport (TX31), Big Spring, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1961)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had recently purchased the airplane and planned to fly it to a friend's private airport to show him the airplane. The private airport was located about 27 nautical miles east of the departure airport. A witness observed the pilot start the airplane's engine, but he did not observe the airplane take off. The airplane did not arrive at the destination, an alert notice was issued, and the wreckage was found the following day about 8 nautical miles southwest of the intended destination and about 6 nautical miles south of the direct route of flight. Although radar coverage was available and showed other airplanes in the accident area using a transponder code of 1200, no radar data were found for the accident flight. There were no known witnesses to the accident. The accident site was located in an area of mostly flat terrain with mesquite trees and shrubs immediately adjacent to a caliche pit that was surrounded by large dirt piles on three sides and measured about 35 ft from the bottom of the pit to the top of the dirt piles. The airplane struck the top of the dirt pile on the east side of the pit, and the debris extended 100 yards to the east, indicating that the airplane was heading east at impact. The damage to the airplane was consistent with impact at a high forward velocity in a relatively level attitude. The signatures observed on the propeller were consistent with the engine operating at a high power setting at the time of impact. There was no evidence of preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
A review of weather information found no evidence of convective activity, a significant surface wind condition, or a low-level wind shear hazard in the accident area. The reported weather conditions at stations near the accident site included clear skies, visibility of 10 miles, and wind from the west at less than 20 knots.
Although the caliche pit was a whitish color that contrasted with the brownish color of the surrounding flat terrain, the dirt pile that the airplane struck was similar in color to the surrounding terrain. Due to this color similarity, it is possible that, while flying at low altitude, the pilot did not recognize that the dirt pile was higher than the surrounding flat terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with terrain during a low altitude flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16FA087
- Event ID
- 20160115X03332
- Case number
- CEN16FA087
- 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. 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: 979b94972b62681aeed508a38443eacbec4f3af7aaf4e8d01ad03b5ddffc7d32; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:38:21.936Z.