NTSB CAROL · Event
Event WPR20LA054
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The failure of the right propeller position to correspond to the throttle change when moved to the beta position for reasons that could not be determined based on available evidence.
Factual narrative
On December 30, 2019, about 1445 mountain standard time, a Mitsubishi MU-2-60 airplane, N43866, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident at the Miley Memorial Field Airport (BPI), Big Piney, Wyoming. The private pilot and three passengers were not injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The pilot reported that the approach was normal, and he did not experience any issues when the airplane made contact with the runway. However, as he moved both throttles to the beta position, it appeared that the left propeller went to beta position while the right one did not. This resulted in a course deviation about 30°- 35°. An attempt to correct the drift with the nose gear control was unsuccessful. The airplane departed the runway and began to turn which, led to the separation of the right main landing gear, collision of the right wing with terrain, and the right-wing tip separation. The airplane came to rest off the left side of the runway with the nose of the airplane oriented towards the approach end. The airplane was secured and retained at BPI for further examination. The airplane was subsequently sold and removed from the airport before an examination could be coordinated. The pilot reported that the approach and landing flare were normal; however, as he moved both throttles to the beta position, it appeared that the left propeller went into the beta position while the right one did not. This resulted in a course deviation and runway excursion to the left, which led to the separation of the right main landing gear and substantial damage to the right wing. The National Transportation Safety Board was unable to conduct a follow-up examination, as the airplane has been sold and a chain of custody had been compromised. As a direct result of the airplane not being able to be examined, the cause of the right propeller failure to correspond to the throttle movement to the beta position is undetermined. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- C Not determined-Not determined-(general)-(general)-Unknown/Not determined
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2019_WPR20LA054.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (runway excursion). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article
Runway Excursion — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary runway excursion review — RE-OE (overruns) + RE-LO (lateral). Risk drivers: long landing, high approach speed, contaminated surface, tailwind, mis-set autobrakes.
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2019 · Accident report
Embraer ERJ 175 Runway Excursion at Charlotte Douglas
Republic Airline ERJ-175 runway excursion CLT, January 2018. Examines a low-energy runway excursion involving misuse of autobrakes + thrust reverser response after a high-crosswind landing on a contam…
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Presentation
Uncovering Resilient Behavior in the Aviation Safety Reporting System Using Large Language Models
Resiliency is present in everyday life, both in system design and exhibited by the operators that function within these systems.
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
Uncovering Resilient Behavior in the Aviation Safety Reporting System Using Large Language Models
Resiliency is present in everyday life, both in system design and exhibited by the operators that function within these systems.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World
Runway Safety Initiative Final Report (RSI)
Foundation Runway Safety Initiative final report — comprehensive analysis of runway excursion + incursion risk drivers worldwide.
- Semantic Scholar 2020 · Article
Towards online prediction of safety-critical landing metrics in aviation using supervised machine learning
Abstract In recent years, due to the increased availability of data and improvements in computing power, application of machine learning techniques to various aviation safety problems for identifying,…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗