MKC87LA062 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Grand Marais Cook County Airport (GRM) to Des Moines International Airport (DSM)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC87LA062
- 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-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N56285
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Marais Cook County Airport (GRM), Grand Marais, MNTo Des Moines International Airport (DSM), Des Moines, IA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Power on landing, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD OBTAINED A FULL WEATHER BRIEFING AND AN IFR CLEARANCE FROM GRAND MARAIS, MINNESOTA TO DES MOINES, IOWA PRIOR TO DEPARTURE; AND THAT THE FLIGHT WAS UNEVENTFUL, EXCEPT FOR STRONGER THAN FORECASTED HEADWINDS ALOFT. ENROUTE, THE PILOT FURTHER STATED, HE RECEIVED TWO IN-FLIGHT WX ADVISORIES BUT DECIDED TO CONTINUE ON TO DSM. ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE, FORECASTED--AND KNOWN--ICING CONDITIONS EXISTED THROUGHOUT THE ROUTE OF FLIGHT. SEVERAL FAA WEATHER BRIEFING PERSONNEL STATED THAT THE PILOT WAS WARNED OF ICING CONDITIONS ON ALL OF HIS CONTACTS WITH FSS. ONLY WHEN THE AIRCRAFT BEGAN PICKING UP RIME ICE DID THE PILOT REQUEST VECTORS TO A NEARBY AIRPORT FOR A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING. THE AIRCRAFT LANDED NOSE FIRST AS THE PILOT REDUCED POWER OVER THE RUNWAY THRESHOLD--THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED UPON IMPACT, DAMAGING THE PROPELLER AND ENGINE MOUNTS. A POST-ACCIDENT INSPECTION OF THE AIRCRAFT REVEALED THE PRESENCE OF ICE ALONG THE LEADING EDGE OF THE WINGS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC87LA062
- Event ID
- 20001213X30529
- Case number
- MKC87LA062
- 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 1987-03-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f9ca3fe79cf08ccfed7471fd8627ac072ed40111aa99325ed6ca6b76e932a9dd; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:25:26.999Z.