DEN89FA036 · Cessna T210F
Cessna T210F · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Blanding Municipal Airport (BDG) to Durango La Plata County Airport (DRO)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89FA036
- 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
- 5 · 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 T210F
- 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
- N6105R
- Operator
- Robinson, William J. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blanding Municipal Airport (BDG), Blanding, UTTo Durango La Plata County Airport (DRO), Durango, 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
- En route · 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 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING FROM LAS VEGAS FSS AND WAS TOLD THAT FLT UNDER VFR WAS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE PROPOSED FLT TO DURANGO (DRO). THE PLT FILED A VFR FLT PLAN AND DEPARTED LAS VEGAS. OVER PAGE, AZ, HE FILED A PIREP AND WAS AGAIN TOLD VFR FLT NOT RECOMMENDED. N6105R LANDED AT BLANDING, UT (BDG) DUE TO SNOW AND THE PLT AND HIS PASSENGERS HAD THANKSGIVING DINNER WITH THE AIRPORT MANAGER. THE PLT THEN CALLED HIS WIFE IN DRO WHO SAID THE WX WAS OKAY, OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING FROM CEDAR CITY FSS, AND DEPARTED BDG. THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED APPROXIMATELY 2 MILES NNE OF THE CORTEZ AIRPORT, ABOUT HALFWAY BETWEEN ITS DEPARTURE POINT AND ITS DESTINATION. IT CAME TO REST IN A SNOW COVERED RAVINE ADJACENT TO A HIGHWAY. WITNESSES SAID VISIBILITY WAS RESTRICTED DUE TO SNOW, FOG, AND DIMINISHING DAYLIGHT. THE PILOT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED. ANALYSIS OF THE PILOTS GASTROCNEMIUS MUSCLE TISSUE REVEALED 0.057% ETHANOL AND LESS THAN 0.005% TERT-BUTANOL, A FORM OF HEAVY ALCOHOL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89FA036
- Event ID
- 20001213X27231
- Case number
- DEN89FA036
- 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: 853b2735fb48cb06fd9f41a18a253ae245c20d11dbbb2e68b48463aaf58efc96; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:28:38.713Z.