FTW95LA274 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS) to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA274
- 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
- 0 · 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
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N55365
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS)To Centennial Airport (APA), Denver, 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Weather condition › Windshear
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE TOOK OFF AND CLIMBED TO AN ALTITUDE OF 200 FEET. THE PILOT SAID THAT WHEN HE WAS ABOUT 500 FEET FROM THE END OF THE RUNWAY, HE ENCOUNTERED WHAT HE DESCRIBED AS 'WIND SHEAR' OR A 'DOWNDRAFT.' HE ATTEMPTED TO LAND IN A FIELD BUT THE DESCENT RATE FORCED HIM INTO A GRAVEL PIT AND THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TERRAIN. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, THE WIND WAS FROM 230 DEGREES AT 19 KNOTS, WITH GUSTS TO 26 KNOTS. DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS COMPUTED TO BE 8,164 FEET MSL. THE 'RATE OF CLIMB VS DENSITY ALTITUDE' PERFORMANCE CHART INDICATES THAT BETWEEN 1,950 POUNDS AND 2,150 POUNDS GROSS WEIGHT, THE AIRPLANE WILL CLIMB BETWEEN 350 AND 430 FEET PER MINUTE. THE AIRPLANE WAS ESTIMATED TO WEIGHT BETWEEN 1,950 AND 2,150 POUNDS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
AN INADVERTENT WINDSHEAR ENCOUNTER. A FACTOR WAS THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA274
- Event ID
- 20001207X03939
- Case number
- FTW95LA274
- 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: 94572827fc8663566d2dc546a65331c878115dbe58578c892641567cddfbc7cc; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:11:29.107Z.