DEN90LA126 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: overrun during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90LA126
- 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
Cessna 172
- 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
- N2723E
- Operator
- Thompson, John · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Overrun
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, delayed
- Pilot in command › Distance, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, exceeded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Boulder, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED HE WAS PERFORMING TOUCH AND GO LANDINGS ON RUNWAY 08. HE HAD COMPLETED ONE LANDING AND 'LANDED A BIT TOO LONG' ON THE SECOND. HE REALIZED HE DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH RUNWAY REMAINING TO TAKEOFF AND RETARDED THE THROTTLE AND APPLIED 'HEAVY' BRAKING. THE AIRPLANE ROLLED OFF THE END OF THE RUNWAY, DOWN AN EMBANKMENT AND NOSED OVER. THE PILOT RECEIVED HIS PRIVATE PILOT CERTIFICATE SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO TOUCH DOWN AT THE PROPER POINT, HIS MISJUDGMENT OF THE DISTANCE REQUIRED FOR TAKEOFF FOLLOWING THE TOUCH AND GO, AND HIS DELAYED DECISION TO ABORT THE TAKEOFF.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90LA126
- Event ID
- 20001212X23383
- Case number
- DEN90LA126
- 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 1990-06-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 699679c246214a8c91b92bc5e3e04e5670ebd24b40cb5420d20ec977d7c7bb7b; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:00:12.746Z.