DEN91FA110 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water
From 1V5 · Boulder, CO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN91FA110
- 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 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N3185T
- Operator
- Bernzen, George G. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1V5 · Boulder, COTo not recorded
- 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
- Other
- 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 terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Suicide, performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Hygiene, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT MADE A DISTRESS CALL, GIVING HIS POSITION AND SAYING THAT HE WAS 'GOING IN.' THE WEATHER WAS VFR. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK A 5600 FT MOUNTAIN AT THE 5530 FT LEVEL IN A WINGS LEVEL ATTITUDE. IMPACT OCCURRED ON A STEEP ROCK WALLED AREA OF THE MOUNTAIN AT HIGH SPEED. THE ENGINE CONTROLS WERE POSITIONED FOR POWERED FLIGHT. THE PILOT LEFT HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, MEDICAL HISTORY, AND HIS WIFE'S DEATH CERTIFICATE IN HIS PARKED CAR. THE PILOT'S MEDICAL HISTORY INDICATED HIS DEPRESSION OVER THE RECENT DEATH OF HIS WIFE & HIS CONCERN ABOUT DETERIORATING HEALTH. THE PILOT'S SON SAID HIS FATHER PLANNED TO COMMIT SUICIDE IN HIS AIRPLANE. A DEATH CERTIFICATE, ISSUED BY THE COUNTY CORONER, LISTED THE PILOT'S DEATH AS A 'SUICIDE.' TOXICOLOGY TEST RESULTS FROM THE PILOT'S LIVER & KIDNEY TISSUE INDICATED THE PRESENCE OF FLUOXETINE, WHICH IS AN INGREDIENT OF PROZAC (PRODUCT NAME), A PRESCRIPTION ANTIDEPRESSANT MEDICATION.
Probable cause
SUICIDE. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: THE PILOT'S OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN91FA110
- Event ID
- 20001212X17839
- Case number
- DEN91FA110
- 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: de883d677ce1cbafba5a34571512be942a9c86aceaaf27d5a4d61365b4cd01a6; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:38:53.475Z.