Mesa Airlines Beech 1900D incident
Beech 1900D · Incident en route
From Denver International Airport (DEN) to Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97IA003
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Beech 1900D
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- N154ZV
- Operator
- Mesa Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, COTo Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB)
- 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 · 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › Incapacitation
- Flightcrew › Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The scheduled commuter flight had been en route for approximately 30 minutes and was in cruise flight at 13,000 feet MSL. Both pilots complained of dizziness and disorientation. After going on oxygen the symptoms dissipated and a normal landing was made at the intended destination approximately 10 minutes after the occurrence. Examination of the aircraft, crew, luggage, and cargo provided no evidence of a problem and neither crew member had any physical manifestations such as smell or irritation. One passenger indicated the possibility of dizziness. No other aircraft in the area at the time reported any difficulty. A test flight was conducted using the same crew, aircraft, route, and altitude. During the flight, tests were performed by a industrial hygienist with negative results. Tracking of the crew and aircraft for several months provided no additional insight.
Probable cause
Partial incapacitation of the flightcrew for unknown reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97IA003
- Event ID
- 20001208X06868
- Case number
- FTW97IA003
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-10-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8a1b85f20a5c27a0398426115678b805d2cefdcc0949e498b55423bde0c90af9; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:46:13.657Z.