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DEN99LA144 · Coleman LANCAIR IV P LANCAIR IV

12 Aug 1999 · Aspen, CO, United States Narrative disagrees

Coleman LANCAIR IV P LANCAIR IV · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing

From Goodland Municipal Airport (GLD) to Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE)

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Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.

Event

NTSB case
DEN99LA144
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

Coleman LANCAIR IV P LANCAIR IV

Aircraft type
Coleman LANCAIR
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
N124KM
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Goodland Municipal Airport (GLD), Goodland, KSTo Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE)
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
Landing · landing roll
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
Airframe, component or system failure
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

  • Landing gear, normal brake system › Failure, partial

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

During the pilot's second landing attempt, the aircraft touched down near taxiway A2, 1,800 feet down the 7,004 foot runway. The airplane then failed to stop, and departed the end of the runway slightly left of the centerline into a grassy, rocky ditch. The pilot stated that after allowing the nose wheel to settle onto the runway, he applied brake pressure and the right brake appeared soft. He was not able to initiate a go-around due to the high density altitude (calculated to be 9,828 ft. mean sea level), and limited remaining runway. According to a mechanic employed at the airport, he observed a red fluid running down the right gear strut following the accident. A functional brake test of the right brake was performed, and it was confirmed that the right brake was 'soft.' The wind at the time the pilot landed was from 300 degrees at 10 knots. The airport normally directs traffic to land on runway 15 due to mountainous terrain, despite existing wind conditions.

Probable cause

A failure of the right landing gear's brake system. Factors were the improper touchdown point attained by the pilot, the existing weather conditions that included a tailwind and high density altitude, and the rocky ditch.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DEN99LA144
Event ID
20001212X19489
Case number
DEN99LA144
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: c40646f0876f2d0b48b6684f82ed6738490e36e56617ab07cdd81e17caeba9fd; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:18:40.438Z.