DEN90FA100 · Piper PA31-325
18PP Piper PA31-325 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Denver International Airport (DEN) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90FA100
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA31-325
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA31
- 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
- N18PP
- Operator
- 18PP
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, COTo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- 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 collision with object
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED TO ATC THAT HE INTENDED TO MAKE AN UNSCHEDULED FUEL STOP. ATC ADVISED THAT CEDAR CITY AIRPORT WAS FIFTEEN MINUTES AWAY. RADAR VECTORS WERE REQUESTED AND WERE ISSUED. ALTHOUGH DARK NIGHT CONDITIONS EXISTED AND THE PILOT CONTROLLED AIRPORT LIGHTING WAS NEVER ACTIVATED, THE PILOT REPORTED THE AIRPORT IN SIGHT AND WAS CLEARED FOR A VISUAL APPROACH. THREE MINUTES LATER RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. IMPACT OCCURRED IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AT 9,100 FEET ELEVATION ABOUT SIX MILES EAST OF THE 5,622 FOOT ELEVATION AIRPORT. MINIMUM SAFE ALTITUDE WAS 12,400 FEET.
Probable cause
THE PILOT FAILED TO MAINTAIN A MINIMUM SAFE ALTITUDE OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN DURING A NIGHT VFR APPROACH FOR LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90FA100
- Event ID
- 20001212X22895
- Case number
- DEN90FA100
- 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 1990-04-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f023f1b8a471fc3c9639990b381efe0b85951d6c09526123a6860d232fbf4353; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:45:25.484Z.