FTW95FA402 · Piper PA-24B-260
Piper PA-24B-260 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95FA402
- 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
- 5 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-24B-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N9121P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS), COLORADO SPRGS, 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
- En route · 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHEN THE PILOT CONTACTED THE RENO, NEVADA, FLIGHT SERVICE STATION, HE DECLINED A STANDARD BRIEFING, BUT REQUESTED A ROUTE FORECAST BETWEEN LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, AND COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO. HE WAS ADVISED OF AN AIRMET FOR MOUNTAIN OBSCUREMENT, OCCASIONAL MODERATE RIME ICING IN CLOUDS AND PRECIPITATION BETWEEN 8,000 AND 17,000 FEET EAST OF THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE. ALSO, HE WAS ADVISED OF IFR CONDITIONS FROM PUEBLO NORTH TO DENVER. THE PILOT FILED A VFR FLIGHT PLAN AND DEPARTED. WITNESSES NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE SAID THEY HEARD A LOW FLYING AIRPLANE AND THE SOUNDS OF IMPACT. IMPACT OCCURRED AT DUSK, NEAR THE TOP OF A RIDGE. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS FOUND. WEATHER WAS DESCRIBED AS 100' TO 200' VISIBILITY, FREEZING TEMPERATURE, FOG, AND INTERMITTENT LIGHT SNOW. ALTHOUGH THE PILOT WAS INSTRUMENT RATED, HIS LOGBOOK CONTAINED NO RECORDED INSTRUMENT FLIGHT TIME, EITHER SIMULATED OR ACTUAL, IN THE LAST 13 YEARS. FIVE PEOPLE WERE ABOARD THE AIRPLANE, ALTHOUGH IT WAS EQUIPPED WITH ONLY FOUR SEATS. AUTOPSY PROTOCOL DISCLOSED THE PILOT HAD 'PATCHY FIBROSIS COMPATIBLE WITH PREVIOUS CARDIAC ISCHEMIA' AND 'SIGNIFICANT ARTERIOSCLEROSIS.' TOXICOLOGICAL PROTOCOL DISCLOSED THE PRESENCE OF THIAZIDES, A DIURETIC USED IN HEART MEDICATION.
Probable cause
VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE OR CLEARANCE FROM MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE LIGHT CONDITIONS AT DUSK, THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND THE PILOT'S LACK OF RECENT INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95FA402
- Event ID
- 20001207X04483
- Case number
- FTW95FA402
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-09-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f6d646deb3fc494a8bf8db3a2d1a2e425da3c6895e24ff456d3e9b247c4ef88f; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:35:40.714Z.