DEN90FA119 · Cessna 152
Judson Flying Service Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From 2V2 to 2V2
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90FA119
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N89834
- Operator
- Judson Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2V2To 2V2
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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(cfi) › Procedures/directives, not understood
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Unsafe/hazardous condition warning, disregarded
- Weather condition › Microburst/wet
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT THE COMPLETION OF AN INSTRUCTIONAL FLIGHT DURING FINAL APPROACH FOR LANDING THE AIRCRAFT ENCOUNTERED WINDSHEAR/MICROBURST ACTIVITY AND A GO-AROUND WAS INITIATED. AT THE INTITIATION OF THE GO-AROUND THE FLAPS WERE RAISED FROM FULL DEPLOYMENT TO UP, CONTRARY TO PUBLISHED PROCEDURES. THE AIRCRAFT SETTLED AND STRUCK A TREE. THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR SUSTAINED MINOR INJURIES IN THE ACCIDENT AND THE STUDENT PILOT FATAL INJURIES. THE AIRCRAFT WAS DESTROYED. THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR WAS AWARE OF ADVISORY CIRCULARS CONCERNING WINDSHEAR BUT DID NOT HAVE A WORKING KNOWLEDGE. JUST PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT A PIREP WAS MADE WARNING OF HIGH WIND, WINDSHEAR, AND STRONG DOWN DRAFTS. ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH, A MICROBURST GUST FRONT PASSED THROUGH THE AIRPORT BETWEEN 1844 AND 1846.
Probable cause
THE PILOT CONTINUED INTO HAZARDOUS WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90FA119
- Event ID
- 20001212X23126
- Case number
- DEN90FA119
- 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 1990-06-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 607791b8f5f97c9ef08e6d09ad444bb614d6ddbc0838171feaaace800f66359f; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:38:18.773Z.