WPR09CA193 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: windshear or thunderstorm en route
From Converse County Airport (KDGW) to Idaho Falls Regional Airport (KIDA)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA193
- 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
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N945RH
- Operator
- Donald S. Ballard · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Converse County Airport (KDGW), Converse County, WYTo Idaho Falls Regional Airport (KIDA), 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
- En route
- Defining eventThe 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
- Windshear or thunderstorm
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was following a highway to the northwest at 10,000 feet mean sea level. He crossed the mountain pass between 700 and 1,000 feet above ground level climbing slowly. Once on the west side of the pass, approaching the base of some cliffs, they encountered a strong down draft and the airspeed dropped rapidly and the airplane started to descend. The pilot reports that he attempted to keep the airspeed at 85 knots and climb but, that the airplane continued to lose altitude. He checked the engine instruments and did not note any degradation of engine performance. The airplane continued to descend. The pilot executed a forced landing in approximately the center of the valley ahead of them. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures. Based on the temperature and pressure readings from the closest weather reporting station, the density altitude at the accident site was about 9,200 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's encounter with a windshear/downdraft that exceeded the climb performance capabilities of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA193
- Event ID
- 20090414X14441
- Case number
- WPR09CA193
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 89b863543f32e0b5a396b061a44ebf5bb486ed399c073d7a537f4a3c9414023d; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:55:48.302Z.