CHI96FA038 · Piper PA-28-201T
Piper PA-28-201T · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Sioux Falls Regional Airport (FSD) to Rapid City Regional Airport (RAP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96FA038
- 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
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-201T
- 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
- N3966M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sioux Falls Regional Airport (FSD), Sioux Falls, SDTo Rapid City Regional Airport (RAP), Rapid City, SD
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a weather briefing, the pilot was advised that 'the forecast across South Dakota for the eastern third of the state 2,500 AGL scattered to broken with 5,000 overcast with occasional visibilities three to five miles in light snow....' During the flight the airplane experienced an in-flight breakup. The wings were fractured at the roots with evidence of positive overload. The empennage was separated from the tail cone with evidence of torsional overload. According to local residents, 'low' visibility existed in the vicinity of the accident due to fog and blowing snow. Airplane weight and balance calculations indicate the center of gravity was beyond the aft center of gravity limit. Toxicological tests detected dextromethorphan in the liver fliud (0.009 ug/ml) and kidney fluid (0.007 ug/ml). Pseudoephedrine was also detected in liver fluid. Additionally, a substance was detected, but not quantified, which according to the manager of the FAA Toxicology and Accident Research Laboratory 'appears to be an ergotamine type compound.' Examination of the pilot's personal medical records revealed medical treatment for an 'asthma flare' 17 days prior to the accident.
Probable cause
the pilot's attempted visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions, his failure to maintain control of the airplane, and exceeding the design stress limits of the airplane. Factors in the accident were: the snow and fog, and the aft airplane center of gravity.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96FA038
- Event ID
- 20001207X04821
- Case number
- CHI96FA038
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 97bcbf07f823c710cf5584642d45a790ee77d3d17bc37cbcb36ce0af3a0b4a6a; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:31:14.985Z.