CHI90LA092 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Mandan Municipal Airport (Y19) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90LA092
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-140
- 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
- N3967K
- Operator
- John Simmons
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mandan Municipal Airport (Y19), Mandan, NDTo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Proper alignment, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED WHEN IT COLLIDED WITH VISUAL APPROACH SLOPE INDICATOR (VASI) DURING A NIGHT LANDING ATTEMPT TO AN UNLIGHTED RUNWAY AT THE COMPLETION OF A PERSONAL FLIGHT. THE STUDENT PILOT WAS NOT INJURED. THE PILOT STATED ON HIS ACCIDENT REPORT FORM THAT HE ATTEMPTED TO ACTIVATE THE LIGHTS TWICE BUT WAS UNSUCCESSFUL. DURING HIS FINAL APPROACH TO THE LANDING RUNWAY HE STATES THAT WIND WHICH HE DESCRIBES AS 'SEVERE WIND SHEAR' DISPLACED HIM TO THE POINT THAT HE HAD TO LAND ALONGSIDE THE RUNWAY. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE VASI SUPPORT DURING THE LANDING ROLL. AN OPERATIONAL CHECK OF THE AIRPORT LIGHTING SYSTEM WAS CONDUCTED BY AIRPORT PERSONNEL AFTER THE ACCIDENT. THIS TEST SHOWED THE LIGHTS TO BE OPERATING CORRECTLY.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN PROPER ALIGNMENT WITH THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90LA092
- Event ID
- 20001212X22682
- Case number
- CHI90LA092
- 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 1990-03-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3d1a2eff3b14b944a98ab7516748d3e1f8662f3d59cc9d28e6f79051c2630fc5; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:44:59.593Z.