ERA22LA079 · Piper PA46 500TP
Piper PA46 500TP · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Destin Executive Airport (DTS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA079
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 PA46 500TP
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA46
- 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
- N172MA
- Operator
- N172MA
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Destin Executive Airport (DTS), Destin, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2006)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- 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 pilot of the single-engine turboprop airplane stated that he flew a straight-in visual approach to the 5,500 ft-long asphalt runway. He added that the airplane was on a correct glidepath and correct airspeed of 120 knots on short final approach. The main landing gear touched down first during the landing, followed by the nose landing gear. As soon as the nosewheel touched down, the airplane pulled to the left. The pilot corrected with right rudder input, but the airplane pulled again to the left and the pilot again applied right rudder. The pilot relaxed right rudder pressure a second time and the airplane again pulled aggressively to the left. He set the throttle to beta, applied both brakes, and right rudder, but the airplane departed the left side of the runway about halfway down the runway. The wind was recorded as calm at the time of the accident.
The runway had a displaced threshold of 1,392 ft; skid marks on the runway (consisting of the nose gear tire and right main gear tire) indicated that the airplane touched down about halfway down the remaining 4,108 ft of the runway. The lack of skid marks for the left main landing gear tire was consistent with the airplane touching down in a left crab angle. As the skid marks neared the left edge of the runway, a skid mark corresponding to the left main landing gear tire became visible, and all three tire marks were visible in the grass off the left side of the runway. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions. Given all available information, it is likely that the airplane was in a crab to the left when it touched down, which resulted in the subsequent loss of directional control and runway excursion.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing, which resulted in a runway excursion and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA079
- Event ID
- 20211130104333
- Case number
- ERA22LA079
- 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, 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: eab755aed54f95e48f064df49f297778ee21c1f4c4940417e73d55f32e2069de; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:47:44.594Z.