U.S. Check Gates Learjet LR35 accident
Gates Learjet LR35 · Accident: overrun during landing
From Centennial Airport (APA) to Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA049
- 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
- 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
Gates Learjet LR35 Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Learjet LR35
- 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
- N8040A
- Operator
- US Check
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Denver, COTo Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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
- Flightcrew › Airspeed, excessive
- Flightcrew › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had just executed an ILS runway 3 approach and was cleared to land by the control tower operator. The landing approach was flown with excessive airspeed. The airplane touched down on the runway with approximately 2,000 feet of runway remaining, and tire skid marks were seen for approximately 2,000 feet on the runway. The airplane went off the runway, past the departure end of the runway, and collided with 2 aircraft and a hangar. The airplane was not configured correctly for landing. The flaps were found at 20 degrees; both the AFM and company procedure recommend 40 degrees for landing. The drag chute had not been used. A review of the airframe and engines did not reveal any abnormalities, and the pilots did not report any malfunctions with the airframe or engines. The weather at the time of the accident was reported as 100 feet overcast with a runway 3 visibility range of 5,000 feet, the wind was from 200 degrees at 10 knots. The runway was wet.
Probable cause
the flightcrew's excessive airspeed and failure to attain a proper touchdown point on the runway. Factors were: the fog, wet runway, tailwind and improper procedures by the flight crew.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA049
- Event ID
- 20001208X07265
- Case number
- CHI97LA049
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 3fd9a8653eb0b62e835ecd56d2b9f82a5c7d9b5afa0cff39d49ea03420d7e473; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:43:38.961Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N8040A; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.