CEN20CA089 · Piper PA28 140
P T Arts Piper PA28 140 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Paul C. Miller-Sparta Airport (8D4) to Paul C. Miller-Sparta Airport (8D4)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20CA089
- 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 PA28 140
- 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
- N6520W
- Operator
- P T Arts
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Paul C. Miller-Sparta Airport (8D4), Sparta, MITo Paul C. Miller-Sparta Airport (8D4), Sparta, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1965)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that, before the accident flight, he and his flight instructor had conducted three uneventful landings on the snow-covered runway before the instructor exited the airplane to allow him to make his first solo flight. During the first solo landing, the airplane slid "a bit," and the airplane came to a stop about 90° from the desired runway heading. The student taxied the airplane back to the ramp where he and the instructor discussed the landing, and both agreed that the student could continue with his second solo flight. During the second solo landing, the airplane slid left upon touchdown, and the student applied right rudder but was unable to regain directional control. Subsequently, the airplane slid into a snowbank beside the runway. The outboard 3 ft of the left wing sustained substantial damage. The student reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of a mechanical malfunction with the flight controls, nosewheel steering, or wheel brakes. Most of the runway was covered with between about 1 and 2 inches of snow/slush at the time of the accident. It is likely that the student landed the airplane on a snow/slush-covered portion of the runway, which resulted in the loss of directional control.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain directional control while landing on the snow/slush-covered portion of the runway and the flight instructor's improper decision to allow the student to make his first solo flight from a snow/slush-covered runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20CA089
- Event ID
- 20200218X94853
- Case number
- CEN20CA089
- 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: efb1f37f0019b551ce4188c766aeedeec53bbd64337661a4d9bf735f88a9e1f2; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:08:27.893Z.