FTW02FA222 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE) to Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02FA222
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N6444J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE), Eagle, COTo Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA), Idaho Falls, ID
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Approximately 19 nm northwest of the departure airport (elevation 6,535 feet), the airplane impacted the rising mountainous terrain at an elevation of 10,050 feet. Prior to departure, the pilot calculated the airplane's gross weight to be approximately 2,270 pounds (maximum gross weight 2,400). After a takeoff roll of approximately 5,000 feet, the airplane departed the runway, and the pilot executed a right turn toward the rising terrain. Approximately 5 minutes into the flight, the right front seat passenger commented to the pilot that "we're going kinda low." The pilot stated that after climbing about 10 to 15 minutes up a valley, he noticed that the vertical climb rate had decreased to about 100-200 feet per minute, which was half the climb rate that he expected at full throttle power. During the impact with the terrain, the fuel tanks ruptured and the airplane was destroyed by a post-impact fire. The engine was test run according to the manufacturer specifications. No discrepancies or anomalies were noted during the engine test run that would indicate the engine was not capable of operating and producing power prior to the accident. No anomalies or discrepancies were noted with the airframe. The density altitude at the accident site was calculated to be approximately 12,000 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to perform remedial action and maintain clearance with the rising mountainous terrain. Contributing factors were the pilot's poor planning/decision, the rising terrain, and the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02FA222
- Event ID
- 20020808X01340
- Case number
- FTW02FA222
- 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, coordinates. 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: 2a3797e5d41324fbde00e331adc5f789ea9c273315fb8a44543ea7449c0d214d; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:56:10.187Z.