CEN19FA238 · Piper PA34 200
Us Aviation Group Piper PA34 200 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Denton Enterprise Airport (DTO) to Gainesville Municipal Airport (GLE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA238
- 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 PA34 200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA34
- 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
- N456AG
- Operator
- Us Aviation Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denton Enterprise Airport (DTO), Denton, TXTo Gainesville Municipal Airport (GLE), Gainseville, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1973)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and pilot receiving instruction were conducting a training flight in the multi-engine airplane, which included several takeoffs and landings. Flight track data indicated that, just before the accident, the airplane was on a 1/2-mile final approach for landing about 250 ft above ground level. The airplane subsequently impacted the ground about 1,500 ft left of the approach end of the runway in a left-wing low attitude. A post-impact fire ensued.
Examination of the left engine propeller showed indications of low or no power; the right engine propeller displayed evidence of moderate or higher power at the time of impact. The left engine No. 2 cylinder fuel injector nozzle was plugged with an unknown substance. Fire damage precluded further determination of mechanical factors related to the asymmetric engine power at the time of impact.
The accident airplane’s engines had been recently replaced and since replacement, both engines had experienced loss of power events during ground operations. Maintenance actions included adjusting the fuel mixture idle setting and a ground test run, during which the problem could not be duplicated. A witness stated that, immediately before departing on the accident flight, the airplane’s left engine lost power and was restarted. Several flight instructors voiced concerns with the company’s inadequate maintenance practices and stated that there were self-induced pressures to complete training flights.
Review of the pilot’s training records indicated difficulty with maintaining airplane control during simulated one engine inoperative flight, and deficient language skills that resulted in a previous event during which another flight instructor experienced difficulty taking control of the airplane from the pilot.
Evidence at the accident site was consistent with asymmetric engine power at the time of the accident, but whether there was an actual loss of left engine power or if the approach was being conducted with a simulated loss of left engine power could not be determined. The position of the wreckage left of the runway and the airplane’s impact in a left-wing-low attitude is consistent with a loss of control due to a failure to maintain minimum control airspeed (Vmc) during the landing approach.
Probable cause
The pilots’ failure to maintain airspeed while on final approach with asymmetric engine power, which resulted in a loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA238
- Event ID
- 20190728X20046
- Case number
- CEN19FA238
- 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: fc57c3a3713fdb62d6f8011459e0e00960ad8e6d50ba620b4a0660d034c9cc7c; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:02:29.182Z.