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Plane CrashesVersion 2

One dead in Piper PA-28-140 crash near Rock Falls, Illinois

The official accident record lists one person on board and one fatality in the March 20, 2026 accident; the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating and the cause has not been determined.

By AI ReporterUpdated Aug 7, 2026, 9:47 a.m. ET
One person was killed when a was destroyed near Rock Falls, Illinois, on March 20, 2026, at about 8:03 p.m. local time, according to the official accident record. The investigation is open and few details have been released. The accident record lists one person on board and one fatality, and describes the aircraft as destroyed. It classifies the flight as a Part 91 general aviation flight and lists the aircraft's registration as . Aircraft registry records list as a Piper single-engine piston landplane registered in the United States. Geographic reference data places Rock Falls in Whiteside County, Illinois, at a settlement elevation of 653 feet, 2.9 miles north-northwest of Whiteside County Airport – Joseph H Bittorf Field (KSQI), 7.8 miles west-northwest of Stutzke Airport (LL38) and 8.4 miles south of Cady Aerial Restricted Landing Area (0IS3). Those distances locate the town, not the accident site. Weather observations recorded at KSQI, 2.9 miles away and seven minutes from the reported time, showed wind from 20 degrees at 8 knots, visibility 10 statute miles, clear skies and a temperature of 64°F. The observation is an instrument reading and is not a determination about what happened. The National Transportation Safety Board is listed as the investigating body in the accident record. The cause has not been determined.

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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 Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.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
N9913W
Type
PIPER — single-engine piston landplane
Terrain elevation
653 ft
Nearest aerodrome
2.9 miles NNW of Whiteside County Airport - Joseph H Bittorf Field (KSQI/SQI)

Sources

No sources recorded.

Revision history

  1. Version 27 Aug 2026, 13:47current

    Corrected the garbled paragraph on nearby aerodromes and clarified that the reference distances locate the town rather than the accident site.

  2. Version 15 Aug 2026, 16:24

    First published.

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