WPR26LA025 · Piper Aircraft Inc PA 46-350P
Piper Aircraft Inc PA 46-350P · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) on approach
From Show Low Regional Airport (KSOW) to Pegasus Airpark (5AZ3)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA025
- 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 Aircraft Inc PA 46-350P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N699PG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Show Low Regional Airport (KSOW), Show Low, AZTo Pegasus Airpark (5AZ3), Queen Creek, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2013)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was conducting a cross-country flight to an airport he had flown to a few days earlier. According to the pilot, during an approach his selected destination runway on the accident flight, his forward view was significantly obscured by a sun glare. He aligned the airplane to land on what he initially thought was the runway, which he later identified as an irrigation canal.
As the airplane descended toward the canal, the pilot observed high-tension transmission lines immediately ahead and at about the same altitude. He maneuvered the airplane in an aggressive descent in an attempt to fly under the powerlines. He reported feeling “a thud” and immediately increased power, retracted the landing gear and flaps, and maneuvered the airplane into a climb. The pilot ascertained the airplane was flying normally and decided to divert to a familiar airport about 16 miles away. As the airplane was on the final approach leg of the traffic pattern, the airplane rolled aggressively to the left. In response, the pilot used aileron control inputs to compensate and landed the airplane without further incident.
After exiting the airplane, the pilot observed that the rudder and most of the vertical stabilizer were separated from the airplane. Local law enforcement located the missing airplane parts in the immediate vicinity of an impacted transmission line and observed a paint signature matching the airplane’s paint on one of the transmission lines. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the vertical stabilizer and rudder.
Surveillance video obtained from a nearby hospital with a view of the accident site captured the airplane flying at a low altitude, with the rudder and most of the vertical stabilizer missing. The surveillance video showed the airplane passing the transmission towers at about 17:53:30; ADS-B data also indicated the airplane passed the transmission towers at about 17:53:30. At that time, the sun’s azimuth was 267° and its elevation was slightly below the horizon at -1.19°. (See Figure 2).
The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper runway alignment and failure to maintain clearance from powerlines. Contributing to the accident was sun glare, which obscured the pilot’s view of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA025
- Event ID
- 20251020201898
- Case number
- WPR26LA025
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2025-10-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f2f8dc826c8e3010dacd894fc2f500be08d52492c66c43c7c61ecfd095c16218; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:29:38.455Z.