DEN90FA013 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Los Alamos Airport (LAM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90FA013
- 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
Cessna T210L
- 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
- N93110
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Alamos Airport (LAM), Los Alamos, NMTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT & PASSENGERS WERE ON A PERSONAL SIGHTSEEING FLT OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. NO RECORD WAS FOUND OF THE PLT RECEIVING A WX BRIEFING OR A FORECAST OF WINDS ALOFT. THE WINDS AT 9000 & 12,000 FT WERE FORECAST TO VARY BETWEEN 200 & 210 DEG AT 25 KTS. THE PLT SAID HE HAD NOT FLOWN IN MTNS AROUND PENASCO, EXCEPT TO FLY OVER THEM AT HIGH ALTITUDE.WHILE FLYING ON AN EAST-SOUTHEASTERLY HEADING, NORTH OF JICARITA PEAK, THE ACFT HIT TREES, CRASHED & BURNED ON RISING TERRAIN AT AN ELEV OF ABOUT 11,500 FT. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT WAS FOUND. TWO WITNESSES SAW THE ACFT BEFORE IT CRASHED. ONE SAID IT WAS FLYING SVRL HUNDRED FT ABOVE THE TREELINE, THE OTHER ESTIMATED IT WAS AT ABOUT 500 FT AGL. BOTH HEARD THE ENG 'REV UP' BEFORE THE ACDNT. ONE WITNESS NOTED A STORM WAS APCHG IN THE DISTANCE. THE PLT RPRTD THE ACFT WAS IN A CLIMB AT 130 TO 140 KTS, WHEN IT BEGAN DSCNDG. HE COULD NOT RECALL THE ACDNT, BUT AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT WAS LEVELED BEFORE IT HIT TREES ON ABOUT 5 DEG RISING TERRAIN.
Probable cause
IMPROPER INFLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION BY THE PILOT, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO OBTAIN (AND/OR UNDERSTAND) WIND ALOFT INFORMATION, HIS LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH THE TYPE OF OPERATION (MOUNTAIN FLYING), A DOWNDRAFT, AND THE TERRAIN CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90FA013
- Event ID
- 20001213X29579
- Case number
- DEN90FA013
- 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: c7c78e05b1b53cd0eb5f72575e68933cfb819d0c5e0b941ad38e03e2457c5822; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:06:25.644Z.