DEN89FA009 · Cessna T210M
Cessna T210M · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From Cannon Air Force Base (CVS) to Grant County Airport (SVC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89FA009
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna T210M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N732QP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cannon Air Force Base (CVS)To Grant County Airport (SVC), Silver City, NM
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE DAWN, WITNESSES (WHO WERE PREFLIGHTING AN ACFT) SAW N732QP TAXIING TO RWY 4. THEY HEARD AN ENG RUN-UP; HOWEVER, THEY WERE UNABLE TO SEE THE ACFT TAKEOFF DUE TO HEAVY FOG THAT HAD JUST MOVED OVER THE ARPT. (THE WITNESSES DECIDED TO CANCEL THEIR FLT DUE TO DETERIORATING WX.) SHORTLY AFTER N732QP TOOK OFF, THE WITNESSES HEARD THE ENG SOUND CHANGE TO A HIGH PITCH SCREAM. THIS WAS FOLLOWED BY A THUMP, THEN THERE WAS SILENCE. AFTER THE ACDNT, THE VISIBILITY CONTINUED TO DETERIORATE, HAMPERING A SEARCH FOR THE ACFT. AS SOON AS DAWN ARRIVED, THE ACFT WAS FND WHERE IT HAD CRASHED ON ARPT PROPERTY. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT WAS FOUND. THE PLT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED. HE HAD RCVD 2.8 HRS OF DUAL INSTRUMENT TRAINING IN THE FALL OF 1981, BUT NO RECORD OF SUBSEQUENT INSTRUMENT FLT TRAINING WAS FND. ONE WITNESS RPRTD THAT AT 0630, THE WX HAD DETERIORATED TO 200' OBSCURED, 1/8 MI VISIBILITY WITH FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89FA009
- Event ID
- 20001213X27026
- Case number
- DEN89FA009
- 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: 54619890e43039df5a5bf909eb5c2201fc2d5d4ffe653f6a8613a56ecaabe438; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:32:22.234Z.