DEN82AA132 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From C · Casper, WY to C · Great Falls, MT
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN82AA132
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5356P
- Operator
- DR. Robert Blandin Beans
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From C · Casper, WYTo C · Great Falls, MT
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Artcc service, inadequate
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Control tower service, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PLT DECIDED TO LAND ENROUTE DUE WX. AT 0803 HE CONTACTED BILLINGS FSS & WAS ADVISED BILLINGS WX WAS 5,000 FT BROKEN. AT 0809 HE CALLED BILLINGS APPROACH CONTROL (A/C) & ADVISED HE WAS 20 MI FOR LANDING. ENROUTE TO ARPT HE WAS UNABLE TO LOCATE THE ARPT DUE WX UNTIL 0818 WHEN TOWER CLEARED TO LAND ON RWY 4. THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT 2/3 DOWN THE RWY, SKIDDED OFF THE RWY TO A POINT WHERE THE GROUND DROPS OFF ABRUPTLY. THE ACFT WAS THEN AIRBORNE FOR ANOTHER 130 FT BEFOREIMPACTING THE GROUND IN A NEAR VERTICAL ATTITUDE. AT NO TIME DURING THE RAPIDLY DETERIORATING WX CONDITIONS WERE SPECIALWX OBSERVATIONS TAKEN. DURING THE APPROACH THE PLT WAS INSTRUCTED TO DESCEND TO 4,000 FT. THE ARPT ELEVATION IS 3,649 FT. THE PLT NEVER MENTIONED HE HAD RECEIVED THE ATIS INFO WHICH INDICATED WINDS FROM THE SW, NOR DID A/C OR THE TOWER ADVISE THE PLT OF THE DOWNWIND CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN82AA132
- Event ID
- 20020917X03109
- Case number
- DEN82AA132
- 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: 74992907a29cefdb06d08aa0a3c22df6af2fe1e6e880ea6c284fddaead56242e; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:07:18.053Z.