WPR18LA184 · Piper PA31 350
Dakota Territory Tours Piper PA31 350 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From an unrecorded airport to Page Municipal Airport (PGA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA184
- 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 PA31 350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA31
- 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
- N621PG
- Operator
- Dakota Territory Tours
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Page Municipal Airport (PGA), Page, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1975)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that, during the landing roll, he was unable to maintain directional control, and the airplane veered right and exited the runway, where the nose landing gear collapsed. Examination of the airplane revealed that the nose gear steering/centering mechanism was fractured, which resulted in the improper alignment of the nose landing gear when it was extended, and a subsequent loss of directional control. Three skid marks were visible from the runway centerline to where the airplane came to rest. The center skid mark was consistent with the nose landing gear and was darker and was about 2-3 times the width of the marks from the main tires; consistent with the nose landing gear's misalignment during the landing roll.
Probable cause
The failure of the airplane’s nose wheel steering/centering mechanism, which resulted in a loss of directional control and subsequent runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA184
- Event ID
- 20180616X54728
- Case number
- WPR18LA184
- 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, cause areas. 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: f8900d08125fa9e5ecff2a0dbcaebbf299368c286ad0d67e87e8da2e0b607d68; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:31:50.113Z.