CTAS should support writing nested structures (nested lists) to parquet.

 
[root@qa102-45 ~]# cat jsonToParquet_02.json
{"id":"123","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"3","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"13","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"12","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"2","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"1","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"230","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"1230","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"1123","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"2123","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
{"id":"1523","arr":[[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8,9,10],[11,12,13,14,15]]}
[root@qa102-45 ~]#

 0: jdbc:drill:schema=dfs.tmp> CREATE TABLE tbl_prq_from_json_02 as select id, arr from `jsonToParquet_02.json`;
Error: SYSTEM ERROR: UnsupportedOperationException: Unsupported type LIST

Fragment 0:0

[Error Id: 7e5b3c2d-9cf1-4e87-96c8-e7e7e8055ddf on qa102-45.qa.lab:31010] (state=,code=0)

2018-02-22 09:56:54,368 [2570fb99-62da-a516-2c1f-0381e21723ae:frag:0:0] ERROR o.a.d.e.w.fragment.FragmentExecutor - SYSTEM ERROR: UnsupportedOperationException: Unsupported type LIST

Fragment 0:0

[Error Id: 7e5b3c2d-9cf1-4e87-96c8-e7e7e8055ddf on qa102-45.qa.lab:31010]
org.apache.drill.common.exceptions.UserException: SYSTEM ERROR: UnsupportedOperationException: Unsupported type LIST

Fragment 0:0

[Error Id: 7e5b3c2d-9cf1-4e87-96c8-e7e7e8055ddf on qa102-45.qa.lab:31010]
 at org.apache.drill.common.exceptions.UserException$Builder.build(UserException.java:586) ~[drill-common-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.work.fragment.FragmentExecutor.sendFinalState(FragmentExecutor.java:301) [drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.work.fragment.FragmentExecutor.cleanup(FragmentExecutor.java:160) [drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.work.fragment.FragmentExecutor.run(FragmentExecutor.java:267) [drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.common.SelfCleaningRunnable.run(SelfCleaningRunnable.java:38) [drill-common-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149) [na:1.8.0_161]
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624) [na:1.8.0_161]
 at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748) [na:1.8.0_161]
Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Unsupported type LIST
 at org.apache.drill.exec.store.parquet.ParquetRecordWriter.getType(ParquetRecordWriter.java:253) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.store.parquet.ParquetRecordWriter.newSchema(ParquetRecordWriter.java:205) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.store.parquet.ParquetRecordWriter.updateSchema(ParquetRecordWriter.java:190) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.physical.impl.WriterRecordBatch.setupNewSchema(WriterRecordBatch.java:157) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.physical.impl.WriterRecordBatch.innerNext(WriterRecordBatch.java:103) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.record.AbstractRecordBatch.next(AbstractRecordBatch.java:164) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.record.AbstractRecordBatch.next(AbstractRecordBatch.java:119) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.record.AbstractRecordBatch.next(AbstractRecordBatch.java:109) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.record.AbstractSingleRecordBatch.innerNext(AbstractSingleRecordBatch.java:51) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.physical.impl.project.ProjectRecordBatch.innerNext(ProjectRecordBatch.java:134) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.record.AbstractRecordBatch.next(AbstractRecordBatch.java:164) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.physical.impl.BaseRootExec.next(BaseRootExec.java:105) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.physical.impl.ScreenCreator$ScreenRoot.innerNext(ScreenCreator.java:79) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.physical.impl.BaseRootExec.next(BaseRootExec.java:95) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.work.fragment.FragmentExecutor$1.run(FragmentExecutor.java:234) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.work.fragment.FragmentExecutor$1.run(FragmentExecutor.java:227) ~[drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) ~[na:1.8.0_161]
 at javax.security.auth.Subject.doAs(Subject.java:422) ~[na:1.8.0_161]
 at org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation.doAs(UserGroupInformation.java:1595) ~[hadoop-common-2.7.0-mapr-1707.jar:na]
 at org.apache.drill.exec.work.fragment.FragmentExecutor.run(FragmentExecutor.java:227) [drill-java-exec-1.12.0-mapr.jar:1.12.0-mapr]
 ... 4 common frames omitted