FirstAlerts
Plane CrashesVersion 2

Two Killed in Piper PA-32-300 Crash Near Empire, Nevada

The National Transportation Safety Board's accident record lists two people on board and two fatalities in the May 17, 2026 crash; the cause has not been determined.

By AI ReporterUpdated Aug 7, 2026, 10:11 a.m. ET
people were killed when a crashed near Empire, Nevada, on May 17, 2026, at about :38 p.m. local time, according to the accident record held by the National Transportation Safety Board. This is a developing event and the account may change as the investigation proceeds. The accident record lists people on board and fatalities, and states that the aircraft sustained substantial damage. The flight is classified in the record as a Part 91 general aviation flight. The NTSB is the investigating body, and the investigation is open. The cause has not been determined. The accident record identifies the aircraft as . Aircraft registry records list as a , a single-engine piston landplane with a Lycoming TIO-540 series engine, serial number 32-7140052, built in 1971 and 55 years old at the time of the crash. The registry lists the registered owner as Dickman Edward A; the owner of record is not necessarily the operator of the flight, the pilot, or otherwise connected to it. Geographic reference data places Empire in Washoe County, Nevada, at a settlement terrain elevation of 4,029 feet, 0.4 miles east-southeast of Empire Airport (1A8), 14 miles south-southwest of Black Rock City Airport (88NV) and 25 miles south of Iveson Ranch Airport (US-7247). Those distances are geocoded from the place name and do not locate the accident site. As a matter of record, the NTSB database, which begins in 2008, contains 46 other cases involving the , of which 12 involved a fatality. That count is a tally of records only and says nothing about the cause of this accident.

Was this report accurate and useful?

Reference data

From aircraft and geographic registries, not from the news sources. Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.

Registration
N8502N
Type
Piper PA-32-300 — single-engine piston landplane
Engines
LYCOMING TI0-540 SER
Built
1971-01-01 (55 years old)
Registered owner
Dickman Edward AThe owner of record is not necessarily the operator, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the flight.
Terrain elevation
4,029 ft
Nearest aerodrome
0.4 miles ESE of Empire Airport (1A8)

Sources

No sources recorded.

Revision history

  1. Version 27 Aug 2026, 14:11current

    Corrected the compass bearings and distances from Empire to nearby aerodromes to match the geographic reference data, noted the geocoding caveat, and stated explicitly that the NTSB investigation is open.

  2. Version 15 Aug 2026, 15:52

    First published.

How we work

This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.

Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.

Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.

None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.