FTW95LA113 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 0V2 · Salida, CO to Cortez Municipal Airport (CEZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA113
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N41345
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 0V2 · Salida, COTo Cortez Municipal Airport (CEZ), Cortez, CO
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · climb to cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight encounter with weather
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT DEPARTED A 7489' MSL ELEVATION AIRPORT WITH NO FLIGHT PLAN. THE WEATHER FOR DEPARTURE WAS OVERCAST WITH THE SURROUNDING MOUNTAIN PEAKS OBSCURED BY CLOUDS. WHILE ATTEMPTING TO CLIMB THROUGH ABOUT 15,000' MSL IN CLOUDS, THE AIRPLANE ENCOUNTERED TURBULENCE AND BEGAN TO LOSE ALTITUDE AT A RATE OF ABOUT 2500'/MINUTE. THE PASSENGER SAID THEY EMERGED FROM CLOUD BASES AT ABOUT 12,000' MSL, AND THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO LAND ON A FROZEN LAKE AT ABOUT 11,800'MSL. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED AT THE EDGE OF THE LAKE AND CAME TO REST ON THE LAKE WITH EXTENSIVE DAMAGE. THE ELT FUNCTIONED PROPERLY (BUT THE WEATHER WAS UNFAVORABLE FOR RESCUE BY AIR). BOTH OCCUPANTS RECEIVED MINOR INJURIES AND SPENT THE 1ST NIGHT IN THE AIRCRAFT. THEY WERE LIGHTLY DRESSED AND HAD NO SURVIVAL EQUIPMENT. THE NEXT DAY THEY ATTEMPTED TO WALK OUT. DURING THE DAY, THE PILOT LOST A SHOE AND BECAME INCREASINGLY DISORIENTED. THEY DECIDED FOR THE PASSENGER TO GO ON AND BRING BACK RESCUERS. THE PASSENGER SPENT THE 2ND NIGHT UNDER AN OVERHANG AND FOUND RESCUERS ON THE MORNING OF THE 3RD DAY. WHEN THE RESCUERS REACHED THE PILOT, HE HAD EXPIRED FROM HYPOTHERMIA. THE PASSENGER, WHO WAS A PILOT, STATED THERE WAS NO PREIMPACT AIRCRAFT FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AT AN INADEQUATE ALTITUDE TO RECOVER FROM TURBULENCE/DOWNDRAFT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PLANNING/PREPARATION BY THE PILOT, HIS INADEQUATE WEATHER EVALUATION, THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND THE HIGH/MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA113
- Event ID
- 20001207X02964
- Case number
- FTW95LA113
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b8ed4c93cf01aaad0d7ec0a6cee6c0964929baa936f6da948fd18026e0fa955c; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:43:59.540Z.