DEN88LA195 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Rawlins Municipal Airport/Harvey Field (RWL) to Las Vegas, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88LA195
- 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
- N5873U
- Operator
- Smith, Catherine · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rawlins Municipal Airport/Harvey Field (RWL)To Las Vegas, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Aircraft performance, climb capability › Exceeded
- Pilot in command › Climb, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PLT AND PAX WERE ON A FLIGHT FROM MILWAUKEE, WI, TO LAS VEGAS, NV. THE PLT MADE AN UNSCHEDULED STOP AT RAWLINS DUE TO POOR VIS AND LOW FUEL. THE AIRPLANE WAS LOADED WITH SUIT CASES, CAMPING GEAR, COOLERS AND FULL FUEL. THE PILOT AND PAX COMBINED WEIGHT WAS APPROXIMATELY 395 LBS. THE PLT ATTEMPTED TO TAKEOFF FROM RAWLINS THE DAY BEFORE THE ACCIDENT BUT ABORTED DUE TO A HIGH DENSITY ALT. THE PLT DEPARTED THE NEXT MORNING AND ATTAINED A 100 FT PER MINUTE RATE OF CLIMB. THE PLT STATED THE ENG 'STALLED' DUE TO 'A LACK OF HORSEPOWER TO HANDLE THE WT OF THE ACFT AT HIGH ALT.' THE ACFT SUSTAINED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE DURING THE OFF ARPT LANDING. THE DENSITY ALT WAS CALCULATED TO BE APPROX 7427 FT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88LA195
- Event ID
- 20001213X26553
- Case number
- DEN88LA195
- 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: 35e728c1407ff3e7456e9093a3d92ad609cec2bd625782c36bce4a058efc2322; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:04:22.699Z.