DEN88FA126 · Cessna 404
Air Today Cessna 404 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY) to Denver International Airport (DEN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88FA126
- 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 404
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 404
- 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
- N8827K
- Operator
- Air Today
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY), Greeley, COTo Denver International Airport (DEN)
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS ON A FLT FROM GREELEY TO DENVER, COLORADO TO OBTAIN MINOR MAINT ON A CARGO DOOR. AS THE ACFT WAS BEING VECTORED ON FINAL APCH, THE PLT RPRTD THAT HE BELIEVED THE ACFT HAD FUEL STARVATION. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT WAS OBSERVEDTO MAKE A COMPLETE ROLL & CRASH IN A RESIDENTIAL AREA. ONLY ABOUT 1.5 GAL OF FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE RIGHT WING TANK. THE LEFT WING & FUEL TANK WERE DESTROYED, BUT NO ODOR OF FUEL WAS NOTED ON THE GROUND AROUND THE LEFT WING. ALSO, A LACK OF FUEL WAS NOTED IN THE FUEL LINES. THE ACFT HAD NOT BEEN REFUELED AFTER THE PREVIOUS FLT. THE PLT THAT HAD FLOWN THE ACFT ON A PREVIOUS FLT ESTIMATED THERE WAS 100 LBS OF FUEL REMAINING IN EACH TANK AFTER HIS FLT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88FA126
- Event ID
- 20001213X25918
- Case number
- DEN88FA126
- 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: 9d5b52af9ea20750016767c73fa761ae275ff43ba4b4303c5f3b6df2f4c71e65; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:09:15.804Z.