DEN87FA024 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather
From Kadoka Municipal Airport (5V8) to Black Hills Airport-Clyde Ice Field (SPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN87FA024
- 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
- 1 · 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-28-181
- 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
- N2161B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kadoka Municipal Airport (5V8), Kadoka, SDTo Black Hills Airport-Clyde Ice Field (SPF), Spearfish, SD
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT AGREED TO FERRY THE ACFT FOR ANOTHER PLT WHO WAS NOT IFR RATED & WHO HAD BEEN FORCED TO LAND AT KADOKA ON THE PREVIOUS EVENING DUE TO LOW FUEL & APCHG DARKNESS. IMC PREVAILED THRU-OUT THE AREA. THE COMMERCIAL/IFR RATED PLT DID NOT OBTAIN A WX BRIEFING OR FILE A FLT PLAN. HE TOOK OFF & CONTACTED ELLSWORTH AFB APCH CONTROL AT 1535 MST. LATER, HE RPRTD LEVEL AT 6000' MSL & SAID THE TOP OF THE OVERCAST WAS AT 5000'. WHEN TOLD THAT BOTH RAPID CITY & ELLSWORTH AFB WERE BELOW APCH MINS, HE ELECTED TO DIVERT TO SPEARFISH, SD. RADIO & RADAR CONTACT WERE LOST AT 1606. ON THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON AT 1415, THE WRECKAGE WAS FND WHERE THE ACFT HAD COLLIDED WITH TREES ON A 4800' HIGH MTN AT ABOUT THE 4650' LEVEL. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THE ACFT IMPACTED IN A WINGS LEVEL, SLIGHTLY NOSE LOW ATTITUDE AT CRUISE AIRSPEED. THE COCKPITWAS DESTROYED BY IMPACT & GND FIRE. MEDICAL & TOXICOLOGICAL CHECKS REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF PLT INCAPACITATION. THE ELEV TRIM WAS FND SET IN A SLIGHTLY NOSE-DOWN PSN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN87FA024
- Event ID
- 20001213X35155
- Case number
- DEN87FA024
- 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: 48df24613909336cbffbe61e1a20c41d8ed5a4eb6cfc37bb70fea6ee3a3c6135; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:18:51.756Z.