Piper PA-24-250 N6661P

Summary

On 5 October 2012 at about 20:44 local time, a Piper PA-24-250 registered N6661P, operated by Six One Papa LLC, was involved in an accident near Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States. One person was on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

5 October 2012 at 20:44

Classification

Accident

Location

Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States

Nearest airport

Meadow Lake Airport (FLY)

Coordinates

38.9456, -104.5697

Aircraft

Piper PA-24-250

Registration

N6661P

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Six One Papa LLC

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Cahokia → Colorado Springs

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

CEN13CA005

Nobody was injured.

The pilot’s failure to maintain airspeed during the landing with known structural icing, which resulted in the airplane’s stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to divert to an area where conditions were not conducive to icing.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

An air traffic controller provided the pilot with an altitude at which to cruise, but the airplane began accumulating structural icing. The pilot requested a lower altitude, but the altitude was still in clouds and the airplane continued to accumulate ice; the controller was unable to provide an even lower altitude to the pilot due to the minimum vectoring altitude. The pilot then visually acquired the airport, at which point the airplane had accumulated 1 1/2 to 2 inches of structural icing. The pilot kept the airplane's speed up during the pattern; however, on short final he reduced power and the airplane stalled about 105 mph. The airplane impacted terrain short of the runway and sustained substantial left and right wing damage. He reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions with the airplane during the flight that would have precluded normal operations. The pilot indicated that he should have obtained the weather conditions at his destination in flight, because they had worsened, or he should have sought an ice-free solution, which may have been behind his flight path.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.