DEN85FA227 · Piper PA-31B-310
Piper PA-31B-310 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to Vernal Regional Airport (VEL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN85FA227
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-31B-310
- 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
- N7497L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo Vernal Regional Airport (VEL), Vernal, UT
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · descent
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Fatigue(chronic)
- Pilot in command › Fatigue(lack of sleep)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT CANCELLED HIS IFR PLAN AND BEGAN DESCENT FROM 13000 FT IN PREPARATION FOR LANDING AT VERNAL, UT. THE ACFT IMPACTED GROUND IN WINGS LEVEL ATTITUDE UNDER POWER. PLT WAS SERIOUSLY BURNED BY POST-CRASH GROUND FIRE. INVESTIGATION REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF FLIGHT CONTROL FAILURE PRIOR TO IMPACT. IT WAS LEARNED PLT HAD FLOWN SMALL ACFT FROM SALT LAKE CITY TO PRICE, UT, AND TO PIERRE, SD, THE DAY BEFORE THE ACCIDENT. PLT RETURNED TO SALT LAKE CITY AT 0200 ON DAY OF ACCIDENT. ACCIDENT FLT DEPARTED SALT LAKE CITY AT 0600. FAA PHYSICIAN OPINED THAT PLT WAS ASLEEP AT IMPACT. ACFT WAS FLYING INTO RISING SUN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN85FA227
- Event ID
- 20001214X37439
- Case number
- DEN85FA227
- 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: 001b16586b6903c780748ef83aa1bb56d97ef026e2d5dd361dfd3c0a5c5eae45; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:16:28.825Z.