CEN19LA183 · Piper PA24 250
Piper PA24 250 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY) to Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA183
- 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
- Unknown
Piper PA24 250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA24
- 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
- N5866P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY), Greeley, COTo Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY), Greeley, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1959)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the final approach and touchdown were uneventful, but then the airplane's right wing “dipped,” the nose veered left, and the airplane departed the runway surface. Witnesses reported that, during the landing, the nose gear contacted the runway first and then the airplane became airborne again. After the second touchdown, the airplane veered left into the grass.
Examination of the airplane revealed that the right main landing gear sustained damage consistent with an excessive side load during landing. There was no evidence of a preimpact mechanical malfunction that would have precluded normal operation. Based on the available information, the accident is consistent with the pilot’s improper landing flare, which resulted in touchdown on the runway with a side load on the landing gear, failure of the right main gear, and a loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper landing flare, which resulted in failure of the right main landing gear and a subsequent loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA183
- Event ID
- 20190624X40852
- Case number
- CEN19LA183
- 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, cause areas. 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: 44272c493d43d17ea13cf5d7423259079535eb818219a7d1b6bac559b75a18e3; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:18:49.608Z.