CEN22FA017 · Piper Aircraft Inc PA-28-181
University of North Dakota Piper Aircraft Inc PA-28-181 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) en route
From Grand Forks International Airport (GFK) to Hector International Airport (FAR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22FA017
- 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
- 1 · 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 Aircraft Inc PA-28-181
- 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
- N820ND
- Operator
- University of North Dakota
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Forks International Airport (GFK), Grand Forks, NDTo Hector International Airport (FAR), Fargo, ND
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2018)
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on a night cross-country flight. Flight track data showed that, after takeoff, the airplane climbed to an altitude of about 3,700 ft mean sea level. About 30 miles from the departure airport, the airplane turned left about 180° and began a rapid descent. The wreckage was located in a plowed, soft dirt field. Examination revealed no preimpact mechanical deficiencies that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane. Following a death investigation, the state medical examiner classified the manner of death as a suicide.
Probable cause
The pilot’s intentional flight into terrain as an act of suicide.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22FA017
- Event ID
- 20211019104122
- Case number
- CEN22FA017
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-10-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a1221fceffe2088e41ae9b3a0be1c0070dc72137b225516aef4f0cc472e84c8f; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:35:46.742Z.