CEN26LA032 · Just HIGHLANDER
Just HIGHLANDER · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) en route
From Blake Field (AJZ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA032
- 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
- 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
Just HIGHLANDER
- Aircraft type
- Just HIGHLANDER
- 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
- N622SC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blake Field (AJZ), Delta, COTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 7 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
- 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 November 2, 2025, about 1630 mountain standard time, an experimental amateur-built Just Highlander airplane, N622SC, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Delta, Colorado. The flight instructor and student pilot were seriously injured. The airplane was operated as a 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. According to the flight instructor, the purpose of the flight was an introduction to tailwheel operations for the student pilot, who was also the airplane owner. The flight instructor stated that after about an hour of performing maneuvers, they were planning to return to the departure airport to practice landings. While maneuvering to enter the airport traffic pattern, the flight instructor noticed some engine roughness and diverted toward Westwinds Airport (D17), Delta, Colorado. The flight instructor stated that the engine instruments indicated normal readings, however the airplane was only producing partial power. The engine roughness continued, and the propeller stopped turning but the engine continued to operate with normal indications. The flight instructor noticed fluid running along the left side of the airplane and prepared for a forced landing on rough terrain. The airplane impacted the ground and came to rest inverted against a ravine wall. The airplane will be recovered to a secure location for future examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA032
- Event ID
- 20251103201947
- Case number
- CEN26LA032
- 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: d52467dec3fee07060f2569f37d12e20c3a9f6d968620d1ba8f65d9799429915; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:31:04.061Z.