DEN90FA192 · Cessna 182P
S W Aircraft Cessna 182P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From LUX · Leadville, CO to Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90FA192
- 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 182P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N9643G
- Operator
- S W Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LUX · Leadville, COTo Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC), Gunnison, CO
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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/mush
- 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
- Dual student › Airspeed, inadequate
- Dual student › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUCTOR (CFI) WAS PROVIDING A MOUNTAIN (MTN) FLYING CHECK-OUT TO A PVT PLT. WITNESSES RPRTD THAT BEFORE THE ACFT CRASHED, IT WAS FLYING 'VERY LOW' UP THE MIDDLE OF A VALLEY TOWARD A 12,700' MTN PASS. IT THEN ENTERED A TURN & DISAPPEARED FROM THEIR VIEW BEFORE CRASHING. IMPACT OCCURRED AT AN ELEV OF ABOUT 11,200'. THE PVT PLT WAS FATALLY INJURED; THE CFI & PASSENGER RCVD SERIOUS INJURIES. THE CFI (A 95 LB WOMAN) STATED THAT THE PVT PLT WAS BIGGER THAN HER & THAT HE KEPT OVERPOWERING HER. SHE SAID HE DID NOT FIGHT HER FOR THE CTLS, BUT WOULD NOT FOLLOW HER ADVICE TO KEEP THE NOSE DOWN TO MAINTAIN A SAFE SPEED, & THAT HE WOULD NOT FLY ON THE WINDWARD SIDE OF VALLEYS. AFTER SHE DIVERTED HER ATTENTION TO LOOK AT A MAP, SHE LOOKED UP & NOTED THEY WERE IN A VALLEY WITH RISING TERRAIN ON ALL SIDES. THE PVT PLT RELINQUISHED THE CTLS & THE CFI ATMTD TO REVERSE DIRECTION, BUT THE ACFT IMPACTED THE SIDE OF THE VALLEY.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PRIVATE PILOT (STUDENT PILOT) TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE AND AIRSPEED ABOVE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT (CFI) AND HER DELAY IN TAKING REMEDIAL ACTION. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE TERRAIN CONDITIONS, HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE, AND DIVERSION OF THE CFI'S ATTENTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90FA192
- Event ID
- 20001212X24242
- Case number
- DEN90FA192
- 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: fb36c42b4cb9c6034ba92c43b476c7d4462f441dfc3baf28aa919ffc8f327c2f; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:10:39.517Z.