WPR10FA330 · Piper PA-28R-180
Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From Kalispell City Airport (KS27) to Kalispell City Airport (KS27)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10FA330
- 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
- 4 · 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-28R-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
- N7581J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kalispell City Airport (KS27), Kalispell, MTTo Kalispell City Airport (KS27), Perma, 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane departed with the pilot and three passengers for a sightseeing flight. Recorded radar data showed that the airplane departed the airport, proceeded north over a national forest, and then traveled south. The last radar return indicated that the airplane was at an altitude about 300 feet above ground level and 2,800 feet mean sea level (msl), following a river. Witnesses reported seeing a blue and white single-engine airplane matching the paint scheme of the accident airplane flying low over the river about the same time as the last radar return. The wreckage was located 4.5 miles south of the river at an elevation of 4,600 feet msl in mountainous terrain. The accident scene was confined to the immediate vicinity of the wreckage, and had been subjected to a localized ground fire. The confined configuration of the wreckage was consistent with a vertical descent and ground impact. Examination of the airframe and engine found no preimpact malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Toxicology revealed that an inactive metabolite of marijuana was detected in specimens from the pilot. No blood was available for testing and the findings indicate only that the pilot likely used marijuana in the days or weeks preceding the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed and aircraft control while maneuvering, resulting in an aerodynamic stall and collision with mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10FA330
- Event ID
- 20100708X10207
- Case number
- WPR10FA330
- 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. 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: f176287321af60a0962cc3ebacde2896b512348a8b3d73165265177480e19815; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:56:09.679Z.