WPR22LA321 · Piper PA-22-135
Piper PA-22-135 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) on approach
From Dillon Airport (DLN) to Ruby Valley Field (RVF)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA321
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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-22-135
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N3268B
- Operator
- Randall A. Johnson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Dillon Airport (DLN), Dillon, MTTo Ruby Valley Field (RVF), RVF, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 68 years (built 1954)
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- 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
According to the student pilot, he entered a cross-control slip to the right on short final to descend. About 150 ft agl, the airplane was trimmed for landing with flaps applied, but the nose of the airplane remained oriented to the right of the runway centerline, and he aborted the landing. The student was instructed to lower the nose to increase the airspeed, but the airplane continued to turn right, and the flight instructor came on the flight controls. The flight instructor reported that he immediately reduced the angle of attack and executed standard stall recovery techniques. The airplane continued to descend and touched down on rising unimproved terrain with a left sideload. The left main and the nose landing gear collapsed, and the left wing struck the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing ribs, spar and aileron. Post-accident examination of the airplane’s primary flight controls revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunction or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control during an aborted landing, and the flight instructor’s delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA321
- Event ID
- 20220829105824
- Case number
- WPR22LA321
- 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, 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: 0814b880eadd54352b0d6c0375b182294aa661f887398c8c78b687e9db308921; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:50:04.474Z.