DEN88FA107 · Stinson 108-2
Stinson 108-2 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From San Luis Valley Regional Airport/Bergman Field (ALS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88FA107
- 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
Stinson 108-2
- Aircraft type
- Stinson 108
- 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
- N354C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Luis Valley Regional Airport/Bergman Field (ALS), Alamosa, COTo 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft performance, climb capability › Exceeded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER PURCHASING ACFT, PLT AND PLT-RATED FRIEND (BOTH AIRLINE PLTS) WERE JOINED BY PLT'S WIFE AND DEPARTED FALCON FIELD, MESA, AZ, EN ROUTE TO MN. THE TRIO STOPPED IN ALAMOSA, CO, FOR NIGHT. THEY DEPARTED ALAMOSA (ELEVATION 7608 FT MSL) THE NEXT MORNING AND FLEW OVER GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL MONUMENT AND ENTERED MEDANO PASS. ACFT CRASHED IN VMC AT ABOUT THE 10,000-FT LEVEL, 30 MI FROM ALAMOSA. TERRAIN RISES RAPIDLY AT ABOUT 20 DEG ANGLE. AT TIME OF CRASH, PRESSURE ALTITUDE AT ALAMOSA AND CRASH SITE WERE COMPUTED TO BE 7238 FT AND 9630 FT MSL, RESPECTIVELY. ACFT RATE OF CLIMB WAS COMPUTED TO BE 195 FPM AND 70 FPM, RESPECTIVELY. ACFT WAS UNDER MAX GROSS WEIGHT AND WITHIN C.G. LIMITS AT TAKEOFF AND AT IMPACT. SHORTLY AFTER CRASH, ACFT CAUGHT FIRE, FED BY CANS OF FLAMMABLE LIQUIDS IN BAGGAGE COMPARTMENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88FA107
- Event ID
- 20001213X25666
- Case number
- DEN88FA107
- 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: cf4b5e9a2956761035796fce39dc5105b440ce32aa170d998b68a71dccb3bc4e; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:43:41.360Z.