CHI91LA093 · Piper PA-28-181
Aviation Services Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Ames Municipal Airport (AMW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91LA093
- 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
- 0 · 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-28-181
- 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
- N6205J
- Operator
- Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ames Municipal Airport (AMW), Ames, IATo not recorded
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT MISSED HIS FIRST (SDF) APPROACH & DIVERTED TO ANOTHER AIRPORT, WHERE HE MISSED AN ILS APPROACH. EN ROUTE TO A 3RD AIRPORT, HE PASSED OVER HIS ORIGINAL DESTINATION & OBTAINED VISUAL CONTACT WITH THE AIRPORT. HE STATED HE FLEW THE LENGTH OF THE RUNWAY TO CHECK VISIBILITY & NOTICED A CLOUD NEAR THE APPROACH END. HE ENTERED A DOWN WIND LEG FOR RUNWAY 34 & TURNED BASE APPROXIMATELY HALF WAY DOWN THE RUNWAY LENGTH. DURING A TIGHT TURN FROM BASE TO FINAL APPROACH, THE AIRPLANE STALLED/SETTLED TO THE GROUND. IT SUBSEQUENTLY TOUCHED DOWN ON SNOW COVERED TERRAIN OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY, DAMAGING THE LANDING GEAR, BELLY & PROP.
Probable cause
IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION BY THE PILOT AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRSPEED, WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL/MUSH ONTO SNOW COVERED TERRAIN BESIDE THE RUNWAY. THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND SNOW COVERED TERRAIN WERE RELATED FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91LA093
- Event ID
- 20001212X16424
- Case number
- CHI91LA093
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1991-02-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c5adbd34116f17033a21fa3df0df3e1990e3bc640f8fbfbfb4aa3c2837a4bc82; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:48:20.220Z.