CEN19CA017 · Piper PA28R 201
Piper PA28R 201 · Accident: navigation error on approach
From Cavern City Air Terminal (CNM) to Lea County Regional Airport (HOB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19CA017
- 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 PA28R 201
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N6899C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cavern City Air Terminal (CNM), Carlsbad, NMTo Lea County Regional Airport (HOB), Hobbs, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Navigation error
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he entered a left traffic pattern for runway 30 during night, visual meteorological conditions. Although the pilot thought he had sufficient altitude during the initial phase of the final approach based on his altimeter indication, shortly after turning to final approach, the airplane impacted terrain.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage, and the three occupants were not injured.
Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The examination did reveal that the altimeter had an incorrect setting, which resulted in an altimeter indication error of +800 ft mean sea level. The pilot stated that he must have had the incorrect altimeter setting for the destination airport.
Probable cause
The pilot's incorrect altimeter setting during the night visual approach, which resulted in a controlled flight into terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19CA017
- Event ID
- 20181029X22852
- Case number
- CEN19CA017
- 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 2018-10-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bcd289f1b7fe45f10f68976dcd70c32cd3e5999ba799b08b5ac0e8116e1b4319; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:23:58.143Z.