Denver Air Center Cessna 441 accident
Cessna 441 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to RIV · Riverton, WY
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN86MA241
- 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
- 7 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 441
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 441
- 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
- N2727A
- Operator
- Denver Air Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo RIV · Riverton, WY
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Physical impairment
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not attained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ON 5/1/86, THE PLT HAD AN ACOUSTIC TUMOR REMOVED FM HIS RGT EAR WHICH INCLUDED THE REMOVAL OF THE 8TH NERVE (BALANCE NERVE). HIS ATTENDING PHYSICIAN SUGGESTED APRX A 1 YR PERIOD OF RECUPERATION DUE TO EQUILIBRIUM PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS TYPE OF SURGERY. ON 7/12/86, HE HAD A 1ST CLASS MEDICAL EXAM & RECEIVED A MEDICAL CERTIFICATE WHICH WAS VALID FOR FLT TEST ONLY. ON 8/28/86, WHILE TAKING OFF AT NGT, THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH RISING TERRAIN APRX 1.5 MI FM THE END OF THE RWY AT AN ELEV OF ABOUT 5600'. THE ARPT ELEV WAS 5586'. A WITNESS STATED THAT HE SAW THE ACFT TAKEOFF, BUT IT DID NOT CLIMB AFTER TAKEOFF. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE ACDNT OCCURRED IN AN AREA THAT WAS ISOLATED FM GND LGTS. A POST CRASH EXAM REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF A MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT STRUCTURE, FLT CONTROLS, ENG OR PROPELLERS. ACCORDING TO THE PLT'S LOG BOOK, HIS LAST NGT FLT WAS ON 3/22/85. HE HAD BEEN ON DUTY FOR APRX 14 HRS WHEN THE ACDNT OCCURRED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN86MA241
- Event ID
- 20001213X34472
- Case number
- DEN86MA241
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1986-08-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b395d19e7ce95a7cc7d17f9b311dc679357984502c920d0391ff35fb069ef3c6; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:18:43.530Z.