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WPR25LA080 · Piper PA-32-300

2 Jan 2025 · Round Mountain, NV, United States

Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route

From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
WPR25LA080
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
Ongoing
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 PA-32-300

Aircraft type
Piper PA-32
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
N4151R
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo not recorded
Aircraft age
About 57 years (built 1968)
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 · cruise
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
Substantial

Cause areas

No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

On January 2, 2025, about 1230 Pacific standard time, a Piper PA-32-300, N4151R, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Round Mountain, Nevada. The pilot was fatally injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The airplane was the subject of an ALNOT (alert notice) that was issued on January 6, 2025 and was subsequently cancelled on January 16, 2025 after the airplane was located by the Nevada Department of Wildlife. The airplane departed from its home airport of North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, Nevada at an unknown time. Preliminary ADS-Bdata captured the airplane at 1104:10 about 20 nm west of VGT at 10,000 ft mean sea level (msl). The flight track ceased momentarily, at 1115:51, and subsequently resumed at 1126:07 on a northwesterly course. At 1143:15 the track arced to the north where it remained until it ceased completely at 1203:48 still at approximately 10,000 ft msl. The wreckage was located by law enforcement about 60 nm north of the last recorded ADS-B data point at the base of the northeastern face of Mt. Jefferson at an elevation of about 11,000 ft msl. Photographs provided by the recovery team showed that the main wreckage came to rest at the base of a mountain ridge. The empennage, comprised of the vertical stabilizer, rudder, horizontal stabilizer, and stabilator, was separated from the fuselage and collocated with the main wreckage. The wings, fuselage, and engine compartment came to rest a few ft from the main wreckage. The wreckage was recovered to a secure location for further examination.

Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR25LA080
Event ID
20250122199577
Case number
WPR25LA080
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. 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: a161ae2bfbd8df0f46efdca52cbabab7261c4df3bea64202ceb19f859705267e; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:01:47.575Z.