DEN89LA078 · Piper PA-46-310P
Piper PA-46-310P · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Angel Fire Airport (AXX) to Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA078
- 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
Piper PA-46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N9092W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Angel Fire Airport (AXX)To Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE), Eagle, 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A PRIVATE PLT AND FOUR PAX WERE MAKING A PERSONAL IFR FLIGHT. A TAKEOFF WAS ATTEMPTED ON RWY 35, WITH SNOW DRIFTS ON BOTH SIDES. WIND WAS ESTIMATED AS 320 DEG AT 25 KNOTS, WITH GUSTS TO 35 KNOTS. THE PILOT SAID THAT AT ROTATION, THE PLANE HIT WIND SHEAR FROM 260 DEG, THAT LIFTED THE LEFT WING. DIRECTIONAL CONTROL WAS LOST AND THE AIRPLANE SETTLED BACK ON THE RWY. THE LEFT MAIN WHEEL STRUCK A SNOW BANK AND THE ACFT SPUN LEFT 180 DEG. THE TAIL SECTION WENT THROUGH THE SNOW BANK AND THE PLANE DEPARTED THE RUNWAY TO THE LEFT. THE PLT SAID THAT WHEN HE EXITED THE ACFT, THE WIND WAS FROM 190 DEG AT AN ESTIMATED 40 KNOTS. A WITNESS VERIFIED A 180 DEG WIND SHIFT AND ESTIMATED THE WIND SPEED AT 40 KNOTS.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE COMPENSATION FOR WIND CONDITIONS BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL. THE ADVERSE WIND CONDITIONS AND SNOWBANK WERE RELATED FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA078
- Event ID
- 20001213X27714
- Case number
- DEN89LA078
- 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: d33e88d407e8f1f6dce6aa51f3a4a89326758604405d67dd78cca6ad6eac89ad; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:52:25.488Z.