DEN83LA052 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: nose over during landing
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to MT PLEASANT, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83LA052
- 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-18-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N9672P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo MT PLEASANT, 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 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Nose over
- 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 › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE DEPARTING SALT LAKE CITY, UT, THE PILOT OBTAINED INFORMATION ABOUT THE WEATHER AND DESTINATION AIRPORT AT MT PLEASANT, UT. THE WEATHER WAS REPORTED VFR AND THE MT PLEASANT MUNICIPAL AIRPORT WAS REPORTED OPEN. DURING ARRIVAL, THE PILOT OBSERVED FURROWS OF PLOWED SNOW ON BOTH SIDES OF THE RUNWAY AND SAW WHAT HE THOUGHT WAS A LIGHT COVERING OF NEW SNOW ON THE FURROWS AND RUNWAY. HOWEVER, THE SNOW ON THE RUNWAY WAS 6 INCHES THICK AND COVERED WITH A CRUST OF ICE. THE PILOT ELECTED TO LAND. AFTER TOUCHDOWN, THE PLANE CONTINUED NORMALLY FOR 75 TO 100 FT, THEN THE MAIN WHEELS BROKE THROUGH THE CRUST AND THE AIRCRAFT NOSED OVER. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE AIRPORT WAS UNMANAGED AND NO OFFICIAL OPERATIONS WERE CONDUCTED THERE DURING THE WINTER MONTHS. THEREFORE, NO NOTICE OF THE FIELD CONDITION WAS GIVEN TO THE FSS. SINCE THE FSS WAS UNAWARE OF THE EXTENT OF THE SNOW COVERING, NO NOTAM WAS ISSUED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83LA052
- Event ID
- 20001214X41980
- Case number
- DEN83LA052
- 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: 2c5b6304db8ffc4abe67fb04cd20b2ae68f7b3e7cd7a8bc841b7b23c2d143ed3; retrieved 2026-09-23T23:24:54.375Z.