DEN86FA175 · Martin Company 404
Martin Company 404 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN86FA175
- 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
- 3 · 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
Martin Company 404
- Aircraft type
- Martin 404
- 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
- N40443
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft performance, takeoff capability › Exceeded
- Company/operator mgmt › Inadeq certification/approval, operation/operator
- Pilot in command › Aircraft weight and balance, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vlof), not attained
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not possible
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
N40443 WAS CONTRACTED BY THE WYOMING DEPT OF AG TO SPRAY GRASSHOPPERS. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE PLT HELD A PVT CERTIFICATE WITH ASMEL RATINGS. HIS MEDICAL CERTIFICATE WAS DENIED BECAUSE HE FAILED TO PROVIDE INFORMATION CONCERNING HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AND ALCOHOLISM. CO-PLT HELD A COMMERCIAL CERTIFICATE WITH ASEL RATING. NO EVIDENCE WAS FOUND TO INDICATE THAT EITHER PLT HAD ANY OPERATING EXPERIENCE IN THE MARTIN 404 ACFT. FORMER EMPLOYEES OF OPERATOR STATED THAT N40443 WAS NOT WELL MAINTAINED. THE ADI SYSTEM AND INTERIOR LIGHTS WERE INOP. WEIGHT OF ACFT AT THE TIME OF ACCIDENT WAS CALCULATED TO BE 44,492 POUNDS. THE MAX GROSS TOTAL WEIGHT FOR A 'DRY' TAKEOFF FROM A 4,500 FOOT RWY WAS APPROXIMATELY 37,900 POUNDS. THE FLT MANUAL PERFORMANCE CHARTS INDICATE THAT A RWY LENGTH OF OVER 5,500 FEET WOULD BE NEEDED FOR AN ACFT AT 44,492 POUNDS. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH A DIRT BANK DURING TAKEOFF.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN86FA175
- Event ID
- 20001213X33824
- Case number
- DEN86FA175
- 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: de7447e0aaba11b7c12f3e777405bb7978d3d6094aaa5aea88b9cf9768e3c36b; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:30:41.297Z.