DEN93FA008 · Cessna 172P
Aspen Base Operation Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE) to Granby, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN93FA008
- 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
- 1 · 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 172P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N63016
- Operator
- Aspen Base Operation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, COTo Granby, 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 · climb to 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 collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Aircraft performance, climb capability › Exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A PASSENGER SAID THAT SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, THE PILOT MADE A RIGHT TURN AND ENTERED A CANYON. HE THEN NOTICED THE AIRPLANE WAS AT 10,800 FEET AND CLIMBING, BUT THE TREES WERE GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE TREES, IMPACTED THE GROUND, AND CAME TO REST IN A CREEK BED. PERSONAL FLIGHT PLANNING PAPERS RECOVERED FROM THE WRECKAGE INDICATED THE PILOT PLANNED TO FLY TO GRANBY, COLORADO, VIA PILOTAGE. THE PILOT HAD LIVED IN THE AREA FOR ONE MONTH AND HAD RECENTLY RECEIVED A MOUNTAIN FLYING CHECK OUT. THIS WAS HER FIRST CROSS COUNTRY MOUNTAIN FLYING EXPERIENCE. THERE WAS NO INDICATION OF AIRFRAME OF POWERPLANT FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS APPROXIMATELY 12,443 FEET.
Probable cause
AIRCRAFT CLIMB PERFORMANCE EXCEEDED. FACTORS WERE: THE PILOT'S LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN MOUNTAIN FLYING, AND THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN93FA008
- Event ID
- 20001211X15848
- Case number
- DEN93FA008
- 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: 206ff1ed6e5b263de49d33312611c37926083c0379a7ff1261cc25415c228ec4; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:50:39.952Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative states that flight planning papers recovered from the wreckage "INDICATED THE PILOT PLANNED TO FLY TO GRANBY, COLORADO"; the destination was not recorded.