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Atlas / NTSB / DEN79FA056

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DEN79FA056

1979-08-17 WENDOVER, Utah, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

PIPER PA-34 · N32418

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dusk

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

Takeoff — initial climb (C1)

Operator type

D

Airport

WENDOVER AF AUX

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

CLEAR

Aircraft history

Serial number

0034-7570020

Total time

1,656 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

84

Age

42

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

HRS INST TIME.PLT BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL .056%.

Investigator remarks

NO GROUND REF POINTS IN DIR OF TKOK,DARK NIGHT,5

Cause factors

  • 64/A/66 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND SPATIAL DISORIENTATION Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/J/65 J
    PILOT IN COMMAND PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT Joint cause
  • 88/J/67 J
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS ALCOHOLIC IMPAIRMENT OF EFFICIENCY AND JUDGMENT Joint cause

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 3918. Source file NTSB_1979_3_3918.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.