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Atlas / NTSB / DEN87LA170

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DEN87LA170

1987-07-05 SNOWMASS, Colorado, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N81DG

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

PIPER PA-28-180

Year of manufacture

1967 · 20 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING O&VO-360 SER (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19671226

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AB0755

Registrant of record

RAE SETH R

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

THE ATP PLT AND HIS PASSENGER DEPARTED ASPEN, CO ON A LOCAL ACROBATIC FLIGHT. WITNESSES STATED THE PLT HAD BEEN PERFORMING ACROBATIC MANUEVERS AND WAS ATTEMPTING A 'LOOP' WHEN THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED TO 'STALL' AT THE TOP OF THE MANUEVER, APPROXIMATELY 2000 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE ACFT SPIN IN A NEAR VERTICAL, NOSE LOW ATTITUDE WHICH CONTINUED UNTIL GRD IMPACT. NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT STRUCTURE, ENG OR PROP WAS FOUND. THE PLT HAD BUILT N81DG. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1987_DEN87LA170.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗