DEN88FA021 · Piper PA-28-181
Durango Air Service Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Durango La Plata County Airport (DRO) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's flight rules. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88FA021
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8266U
- Operator
- Durango Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Durango La Plata County Airport (DRO), Durango, COTo 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 Possible conflict
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
- Pilot passenger › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE TWO PAX HAD CHARTERED N8266U FOR A SIGHTSEEING FLIGHT OF THE LOCAL AREA. THE CHARTER PLT, A CFI FOUND THAT ONE OF THE PAX WAS A PLT AND PERMITTED HIM TO FLY THE ACFT. THE PAX EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN SPOTTING ELK AND FLEW THE ACFT INTO A CANYON, BELOW THE CANYON RIDGE LINE. THE ACFT APPROACHED THE END OF THE CANYON AND THE PLT EXECUTED A LEFT TURN. THE BACK SEAT PAX STATED THE STALL WARN HORN SOUNDED DURING THE TURN. THE CFI TOOK CONTROL OF THE ACFT BUT WAS UNABLE TO RECOVER BEFORE THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES. THE TERRAIN RISES TO ABOVE 10,000 FT. THE CALCULATED CLIMB RATE WAS DETERMINED TO BE 200 FT PER MIN APPROX.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88FA021
- Event ID
- 20001213X32509
- Case number
- DEN88FA021
- 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: 533ab00c08f6aa8146a04725eea86a4b6505a48be791ebe9a8f5e3b49f948a09; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:55:05.715Z.