P. M. Air Cessna 208A accident
Cessna 208A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE) to Denver International Airport (DEN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90FA068
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 208A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N820FE
- Operator
- P. M. Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, COTo Denver International Airport (DEN)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · IFR final approach
- 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
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Stall › Inadvertent
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CESSNA 208A WAS ON AN IFR FLT TO HAUL FREIGHT FROM ASPEN TO DENVER, COLORADO. MODERATE TO HEAVY ICING CONDITIONS WERE FORECAST FOR THE DENVER AREA. WHILE ON AN ILS RWY 36 APCH, THE ACFT ENCOUNTERED ICING CONDITIONS. SUBSEQUENTLY, IT ENTERED A STEEP DESCENT & CRASHED ABOUT 3 MI FROM THE APCH END OF THE RWY. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OF THE ACFT WAS FOUND DURING THE INVESTIGATION. THE 1950 MST WX AT THE ARPT WAS IN PART: 800' SCATTERED, 1000' BROKEN, VIS 4 MI WITH FREZZING DRIZZLE & SNOW SHOWERS, TEMP 28 DEG, DEW POINT 25 DEG.
Probable cause
THE ACCUMULATION OF STRUCTURAL ICE AND SUBSEQUENT STALLING OF THE AIRCRAFT. THE ICING CONDITION WAS A RELATED FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90FA068
- Event ID
- 20001212X22544
- Case number
- DEN90FA068
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-02-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7955b1f3c1b5704448bd5cd0121d75e83425415c656d01b6ad315c529e4eb0ed; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:06:46.515Z.