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Atlas / NTSB / WPR25LA271

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR25LA271

2025-08-31 Red Lodge, Montana, United States Airport · RED Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N45254

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

NAVAL AIRCRAFT FACTORY N3N-3

Year of manufacture

1941 · 84 years old at event

Engine

AMA/EXPR UNKNOWN ENG

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19820331

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A57CAE

Registrant of record

EDWARDS SCOTT H TRUSTEE

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from obstacles during an aborted landing. Contributing to the accident was the high density altitude weather condition.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that, while landing he executed a go around due to numerous people on the grass runway. On the second approach the airplane touched down hard and bounced so the pilot added power and initiated a go-around. During the go-around, the airplane impacted a wire fence at the end of the runway and subsequently struck powerlines before it came to rest. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The pilot reported that he had previously only flown low approaches at the airport, and he had not landed there before. He also reported there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The nearest weather reporting station, about 27 miles southeast of the accident site, reported around the time of the accident, altimeter setting of 30.31 inches of mercury, and temperature of 68° F. The calculated density altitude was 7,349 ft. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Climb rate-Not attained/maintained
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Temp/humidity/pressure-High density altitude-Effect on operation

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_WPR25LA271.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 (go-around). 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 ↗