WPR22FA164 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40
Platinum Aviation Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC) to Bryce Canyon Airport (BCE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22FA164
- 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
Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA-40
- 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
- N321PF
- Operator
- Platinum Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC), Cedar City, UTTo Bryce Canyon Airport (BCE), Bryce Canyon, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2004)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- 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
Witnesses traveling near the accident site reported that they observed the accident airplane flying on an easterly heading about 200 to 300 ft above ground level. The airplane did not appear to be in distress. After the airplane passed over the witnesses’ positions, the airplane maneuvered as if the pilot were trying to turn it around. One witness stated that the airplane’s wings were almost completely vertical at that point. The airplane subsequently impacted mountainous terrain about 7 miles southeast of the departure airport. A postcrash fire ensued.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of a pre-existing mechanical malfunction that would have precluded normal operation. A review of the airplane’s weight and balance information showed that, at the time of departure, the airplane was about 128 pounds over the airplane’s maximum gross weight of 2,646 pounds. The airplane was also outside the approved center-of-gravity envelope. The calculated density altitude at the time of departure was about 6,022 ft.
The calculated fuel use from the departure airport to the accident location was about 5 gallons. Thus, at the time of the accident, the airplane was likely about 98 pounds over the maximum gross weight. The calculated density altitude at the accident location and the time of the accident was about 7,203 ft. The calculated climb performance for the airplane, at its assumed altitude and air density conditions, would have about 300 ft per minute.
The excessive airplane weight likely limited the airplane’s ability to climb in mountainous terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain obstacle clearance, which resulted in controlled flight into terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to operate the airplane above its maximum gross weight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22FA164
- Event ID
- 20220424104989
- Case number
- WPR22FA164
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2022-04-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 70572014a65c560adc84cfeabe7d75c5da7bc8787f9c3aa0c86e88a6149f2cf9; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:43:30.545Z.