DEN89FA155 · Piper PA-16
Piper PA-16 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Watford City Municipal Airport (S25) to Minot International Airport (MOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89FA155
- 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-16
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-16
- 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
- N5295H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Watford City Municipal Airport (S25), Watford City, NDTo Minot International Airport (MOT)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Fuselage, longeron › Corroded
- Fuselage, longeron › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE PLT TURNED ON FINAL APCH TO LND, HE HEARD A 'THUD,' THEN THE ACFT ENTERED AN UNCONTROLLED LEFT TURN. AFTER TURNING ABOUT 360 DEG, IT IMPACTED THE GROUND IN A LEFT WING LOW, NOSE LOW ATTITUDE. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED A FAILUREOF THE AIRFRAME TUBING AT THE LOWER FORWARD DOOR FRAME. THE FAILURE WAS IN THE AREA OF A CONGLOMERATE WELD WHERE THE TUBING WAS PART OF THE DOOR FRAME, FIRE WALL/ENGINE MOUNT, & RIGHT FORWARD LIFT STRUT SUPPORT. AN EXAM REVEALED THE TUBING HAD SEPARATED PRIOR TO IMPACT. APRX 3/4 OF THE FRACTURE WAS THE RESULT OF CORROSION; THE REMAINING FRACTURE WAS FROM OVERLOAD, BUT NOT DUE TO IMPACT. WITH THIS FAILURE, THE LEADING EDGE OF THE RIGHT WING WOULD TWIST UPWARD & THE ENGINE (WITH POWER) WOULD MOVE UP & TO THE LEFT. PIPER SERVICE BULLETING #819, SUBJECT: FUSELAGE DOOR FRAME TUBE CORROSION, DATED 2/28/86, ADDRESSED THE HAZARD OF CORROSION IN THIS AREA.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE AIRFRAME TUBING (LONGERON) AT THE LOWER FORWARD DOOR FRAME DUE TO CORROSION. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS FAILURE OF MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TO COMPLY WITH SERVICE BULLETIN #819.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89FA155
- Event ID
- 20001213X28791
- Case number
- DEN89FA155
- 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 1989-07-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d77b6757de72234e3fc2d0e71b5527d509d07c079b0a14c2f19a5641e2090635; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:53:26.514Z.