CHI08FA027 · Piper PA-44-180
University of North Dakota Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Saint Paul Downtown Holman Field (STP) to Grand Forks International Airport (GFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08FA027
- 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-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N327ND
- Operator
- University of North Dakota
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Saint Paul Downtown Holman Field (STP), St Paul, MNTo Grand Forks International Airport (GFK), Grand Forks, ND
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Flight control, stabilator › Bent
- Flightcrew › Aircraft control, not possible
- Flt control syst, stabilator control › Loss, total
- Object › Bird(s)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident flight was the third of a three-leg dual instructional night cross-country flight. The airplane was established in normal cruise flight at 4,500 feet mean sea level (msl) when the airplane abruptly departed controlled flight and impacted a bog. The bog was about 15 to 20 feet deep, with a thin layer of vegetation floating on the surface. The airplane came to rest inverted, and damage to the airframe was consistent with an inverted impact to the surface of the bog. Data recovered from the airplane's flight display system indicated that the airplane was in stable flight on a 320-degree magnetic heading, at 4,500 feet msl, and approximately 160 knots true airspeed prior to the accident, when it abruptly departed from controlled flight. The airplane rolled approximately 20 degrees left wing down, yawed to the left about 30 degrees, and simultaneously pitched nose-down about 40 degrees. It then reversed and immediately entered a descending, right roll for the duration of the flight. The airplane impacted the bog within 30 seconds of the upset. The post accident examination noted that the left half of the horizontal stabilator was bent upward approximately 90 degrees, inconsistent with the damage to the remainder of the airframe. This damage was consistent with the initial left yaw and nose down pitch recorded during the upset. In addition, a depression and tear were observed on the upper wing skin near the left wing tip. Microscopic examination and DNA testing of material on the inside surface of the wing skin was identified as remains of a Canada goose. The natural history of this species was consistent with the location, time, and date of the accident.
Probable cause
An in-flight collision with at least one Canada goose, and the resulting damage to the left stabilator that caused the airplane to become uncontrollable. Contributing to the accident was the night lighting condition, which precluded any possibility of the flight crew seeing the bird(s) prior to impact.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08FA027
- Event ID
- 20071102X01708
- Case number
- CHI08FA027
- 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 2007-10-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4c6f9a0dfb00d7e61a343d9ffd18702228765d617d2eb640175d703fcbb6c477; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:10:37.365Z.