DEN99LA030 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From IV5 · Boulder, CO to Steamboat Springs Bob Adams Field (SBS)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN99LA030
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N8112S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From IV5 · Boulder, COTo Steamboat Springs Bob Adams Field (SBS), STEAMBOAT 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Rollinsville, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot obtained a weather briefing for a cross-country flight from Boulder to Steamboat Springs which called for a SIGMET for severe turbulence due to strong winds in the vicinity of the mountains, and AIRMETS for mountain obscuration and moderate to severe turbulence. The winds aloft were forecasted to be 310 degrees at 48 knots (9,000 feet), 320 degrees at 56 knots (12,000 feet), and 310 degrees at 66 knots (18,000 feet). The pilot was going to rent a car, then later changed his mind. While en route, he encountered low visibility and obscuration due to blowing snow and mountain obscuration. He decided to turn around and descend, and was then 'caught in a powerful smooth air downdraft.' The aircraft impacted the ground and the right wing and left landing gear were sheered off. According to a witness, weather conditions at the time of the accident included 'snow, blowing snow, limited visibility, and winds gusting to approximately 40 mph... A stormy day to be sure.' At the time of the accident, the pilot had 18 years of flight experience, the majority and most recent of which was conducted in California. He was unfamiliar with the geographic location and with mountain flying.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate decision to continue flight into deteriorating weather conditions, that included a downdraft which resulted in a loss of control, and collision with terrain. Contributing factors were the pilot's lack of familiarity with the terrain, high winds, obscuration and mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN99LA030
- Event ID
- 20001211X11551
- Case number
- DEN99LA030
- 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: 4b6767bd9855c7da2c89792dda8f948b8170d48f1b3f91c27f1d0dc1233a6007; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:37:44.137Z.