DEN87FA023 · Beech A36TC
Beech A36TC · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Steamboat Springs, CO to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN87FA023
- 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
- 5 · 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
Beech A36TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N36TS
- Operator
- Randy Bacchus
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Steamboat Springs, COTo Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MN
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not attained
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PLT AND FOUR PAXS WERE RETURNING HOME FROM A SKI VACATION. A WITNESS AT THE ARPT OBSERVED A NORMAL TAKEOFF AND SAW THE ACFT TURN TOWARDS AN AREA OF HIGH TERRAIN LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 1.5 MILES FROM THE STEAMBOAT ARPT. THE WITNESS OBSERVED N36TS CONTINUE ON A HEADING TOWARDS COPPER RIDGE AT AN ALTITUDE THAT WAS NOT SUFFICIENT TO CLEAR THE SUMMIT. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES AND THE GROUND APPROXIMATELY 100 FEET BELOW THE SUMMIT. THE ACFT WAS DESTROYED BY A POST CRASH FIRE. PERFORMANCE CHARTS FOR THE ACFT INDICATED A RATE OF CLIMB OF 1,060 FPM AND A DISTANCE OF APPROXIMATELY 5 MILES TO CLIMB FROM 6,879 FEET TO 8,400 FEET. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF A MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE OF THE ACFT STRUCTURE, FLT CONTROL SYS, ENG OR PROP PRIOR TO THE INITIAL IMPACT. ATTEMPTS TO LOCATE THE PLTS LOG BOOKS FOR FLT TIME WAS UNSUCCESSFUL. TIME EST FROM MED RECORDS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN87FA023
- Event ID
- 20001213X35154
- Case number
- DEN87FA023
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 06dfcc5517a8b2df59f4efb5d483a46bd28e46276d07eb7f4d1271141d2f6eda; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:18:55.236Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states "A WITNESS AT THE ARPT OBSERVED A NORMAL TAKEOFF" toward high terrain "APPROXIMATELY 1.5 MILES FROM THE STEAMBOAT ARPT"; the departure was not recorded.