DEN90FA092 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Wendover Airport (ENV) to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
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
- DEN90FA092
- 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
- 2 · 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
Piper PA-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6401P
- Operator
- Sorensen, Fred · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wendover Airport (ENV)To Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT STATED HE ACTIVATED THE RWY EDGE LIGHTS PRIOR TO TAXIING FOR TAKEOFF, AND TAXIED FOR 'QUITE A WHILE' BECAUSE THE TAXIWAY IS NOT LIGHTED. HE BELIEVES THE LIGHTS WENT OUT SHORTLY AFTER THE AIRPLANE BECAME AIRBORNE. THE RWY LIGHTS REMAIN ILLUMINATED FOR APRX 15 MIN AFTER ACTIVATION. THE SURVIVING PAX REMEMBERED THE AIRPLANE 'TUMBLING' AFTER TAKEOFF.THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND IN A LEFT WING DOWN, NOSE LOW ATTITUDE. THE AIRPORT IS LOCATED SOUTHEAST OF THE CITY, ANDPILOTS FAMILIAR WITH THE AIRPORT DESCRIBED THE AREA ALONG THE EXTENDED CENTERLINE OF RWY 21 AS 'A BLACK HOLE'. THE PILOTHAD LOGGED 4 HRS OF NIGHT TIME IN THE LAST 90 DAYS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE DUE TO SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. CONTRIBUTING FACTOR(S) WAS: THE LACK OF SURFACE REFERENCE WHILE TAKING OFF OVER A SPARSELY POPULATED AREA UNDER DARK NIGHT LIGHT CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90FA092
- Event ID
- 20001212X22893
- Case number
- DEN90FA092
- 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 1990-04-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b4b6628436e316b9b29f8eebdf213823ca8b28f7f3d7c138e9269b4473fe5d14; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:47:15.157Z.