DEN93LA065 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From La Junta Municipal Airport (LHX) to Limon Municipal Airport (LIC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN93LA065
- 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
Cessna 182A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N2131G
- Operator
- Trimmer, Marvin E. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From La Junta Municipal Airport (LHX), La Junta, COTo Limon Municipal Airport (LIC), Limon, 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 › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ON A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE WEATHER DETERIORATED AND THE NON INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT ATTEMPTED A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING ON A ROAD. THE ROAD WAS WET, SOFT, AND MUDDY, AND DURING LANDING ROLL, THE AIRCRAFT DEPARTED THE ROAD AND IMPACTED IN A ROADSIDE DITCH. THE PILOT HAD RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEF ONE HOUR PRIOR TO DEPARTURE. THE WEATHER BRIEF FORECAST THE WEATHER TO BE VFR ALONG THE ROUTE OF FLIGHT AND TO REMAIN VFR FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS AFTER ARRIVAL.
Probable cause
THE SELECTION OF UNSUITABLE TERRAIN FOR A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING BY THE PILOT IN COMMAND. A FACTOR WAS: MISJUDGING THE DETERIORATING WEATHER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN93LA065
- Event ID
- 20001211X12596
- Case number
- DEN93LA065
- 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: d37d15728efecced51b308b53a92244191b6d920a9bd1a59d2d6944f6d235b76; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:01:31.354Z.