CHI85FA120 · Piper PA-31T
Piper PA-31T · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Montgomery Regional (Dannelly Field) Airport (MGM) to UIZ · Utica, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85FA120
- 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
- 2 · 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-31T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N100RN
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery Regional (Dannelly Field) Airport (MGM), Montgomery, ALTo UIZ · Utica, MI
- 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 · IFR final 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 › Decision height, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, not used
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Utica, MI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT ATTEMPTED A VOR APPROACH AND MISSED. HE ADVISED ATC HE WAS GOING TO ATTEMPT THE NDB & IF HE COULD NOT SEE THE RWY HE WOULD GO TO METRO AT DETROIT OR PONTIAC. ON THE NDB APPROACH THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK TREES 960 FT BELOW THE MOA. THE AIRCRAFT FLIPPED OVER LANDING ON THE NOSE & TOP OF THE FUSELAGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85FA120
- Event ID
- 20001214X35645
- Case number
- CHI85FA120
- 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 1985-02-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c2337c93a4a04855861651b14d350eb7764736a6a95458dd59d4ed34e93b9259; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:08:11.239Z.