WPR10FA005 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From St Johns Industrial Air Park (SJN) to Eagle Roost Airpark (27AZ)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10FA005
- 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-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
- N7471P
- Operator
- Ralph Smith
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Johns Industrial Air Park (SJN), St. Johns, AZTo Eagle Roost Airpark (27AZ), Aguila, AZ
- 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed under visual flight rules (VFR) for a planned cross-country flight. Recorded radar data revealed that about 50 miles east of the accident site, the flight was at a pressure altitude of 8,500 feet mean sea level (msl) with a flight path on west-southwest heading. The radar data depicted a descent from 6,900 feet to 5,700 feet msl at the last recorded radar target. The last radar target was located about 0.32 miles southeast of the accident site, at 5,700 feet msl. Review of recorded radio communications between the pilot and the Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) revealed that at about 25 minutes prior to the accident, the pilot informed the controller that he was “going to be drifting down just a little bit lower to stay under the clouds." The wreckage was located within mountainous terrain at an elevation of 5,488 feet msl. Wreckage and impact signatures at the accident site were consistent with a level attitude at the time of collision with terrain. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Review of recorded weather data from weather reporting stations surrounding the accident site revealed multiple layers of low clouds over the accident site during the time frame of the accident. Visible and infrared satellite imagery surrounding the time period of the accident depicted a broken to overcast layer of stratocumulus to nimbostratus clouds over the accident site. A weather reporting station located approximately 3 miles west of the accident site at an elevation of 5,250 feet reported wind from 216 degrees at 22 knots, gusting to 35 knots during the time period of the accident. Coupled with saturated conditions and 100 percent relative humidity and no temperature dew point spread, this is consistent with the station being in the clouds with instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) existing. A review of the radar and satellite imagery confirms low overcast conditions over the station and accident site. A second weather reporting station located approximately 8 miles northeast of the accident site at an elevation of 2,960 feet msl, also reported high relative humidity at 80 percent, which supported low level clouds and potential mountain obscuration in the area.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to continue VFR flight into instrument meteorological weather conditions which resulted in controlled flight into terrain. Contributing to the accident were low ceilings, reduced visibility, and mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10FA005
- Event ID
- 20091005X83514
- Case number
- WPR10FA005
- 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: 88d237973ae7939630c392580ecb7eae38b69e1d476a297387338821839ed178; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:30:44.702Z.