CEN23LA041 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: medical event while taxiing
From an unrecorded airport to PCO · Perryville, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA041
- 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 PA-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N267PC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo PCO · Perryville, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 49 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Medical event
- 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 › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot recalled communicating with air traffic control (ATC) for his taxi clearance and did not recall any events after acknowledging the taxi clearance. An ATC controller issued taxi instructions and observed the airplane taxi to the run-up area. After completing the run-up, the pilot was instructed to contact the ATC tower. After no communications were received from the pilot, the controller attempted to initiate contact but there was no reply. Several attempts to contact the pilot via radio were unsuccessful, and the tower controller noticed the airplane had turned around in the run-up area. Based on the airplane’s repositioning, the controller assumed the pilot was looking for a light signal and issued a green light. When the airplane did not move, the controller made several more attempts to contact the pilot but there was no response. The controller then noticed that the airplane appeared to be taxiing back to the general aviation ramp; however, the airplane accelerated, departed the movement area into the grass, and impacted a perimeter fence.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunction or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings.
Based on the witnessed circumstances of the accident, it is likely the accident was the result of the pilot’s temporary incapacitation. Postaccident medical care of the pilot revealed the pilot had an undiagnosed brain tumor. The incapacitation was possible due to a seizure trigged by the tumor, and it was also possible that the brain tumor was an incidental finding unrelated to incapacitation. The cause of the pilot’s incapacitation could not be definitively determined from available medical evidence.
Probable cause
The pilot lost control of the airplane while on the ground due to temporary incapacitation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA041
- Event ID
- 20221122106342
- Case number
- CEN23LA041
- 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: e40f41febad6f48b70891e47ab0bb40dffca1aeac9a112018a1824a1b7696083; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:25:58.349Z.