DEN99FA077 · Cessna 172Q
Aspen Flying Club Cessna 172Q and Cessna T210N · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN99FA077
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 172Q
- 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
- N96299
- Operator
- Aspen Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, COTo Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · Cessna T210N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N5129C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE), Eagle, COTo Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Visual lookout, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
N96299, a Cessna 172Q, was inbound on the localizer and was executing the ILS approach to runway 9. The private pilot in the left seat was wearing an instrument hood, and the flight instructor in the right seat was maintaining a visual lookout. N5129C, a Cessna T210N, had completed the VOR-A approach, and had entered the traffic pattern for landing on runway 9. Both the private pilot in the left seat and the flight instructor in the right seat were maintaining visual lookouts. Seconds after the 210 pilot turned onto final approach, the collision occurred. Both airplanes landed safely. The 172 had minor damage. The 210 sustained substantial damage, including a destroyed right wing upper spar cap and a damaged right aileron that reduced roll control.
Probable cause
Failure of the pilots in the other airplane to maintain a visual lookout. A factor was the failure of the flight instructor to maintain a visual lookout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN99FA077
- Event ID
- 20001212X18741
- Case number
- DEN99FA077
- 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: d4de04048bffba362b95243aaadf59799fc34094ab977dc807e6c05113844d73; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:14:55.468Z.