CEN26LA055 · Just Highlander
Just Highlander · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA055
- 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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
- N957DK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2015)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness reported that he was outside when he saw the accident airplane maneuvering about 30 to 50 ft above the ground along a river. He remarked that the airplane seemed low. The witness said that the engine sounded like it was operating normally and the airplane was not flying erratically. The witness saw the airplane bank and then it struck a powerline. There was a bright flash of light, the airplane disappeared from his view, and then he heard a loud bang. The witness went to the other side of his property and saw that the airplane was upside down on a sandbar along the river. He estimated that the powerline was about 40 to 45 ft above ground. The pilot was seriously injured, and the airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, wing struts, and engine mount. The investigator in charge made several attempts to obtain a statement from the pilot. At the time this report was written, the pilot had not provided a statement pertaining to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from power lines during low-level maneuvering along a river.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA055
- Event ID
- 20251201202079
- Case number
- CEN26LA055
- 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: c030d77ae5afce232bb119d14360099f8d1b0ea6a87227c5bcaa750f10792ce6; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:34:45.044Z.