DEN85FA125 · Cessna 421C
Cessna 421C · Accident: loss of control in flight during an uncontrolled descent
From an unrecorded airport to San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN85FA125
- 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
- 0 · 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 421C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N8343G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT), El Monte, CA
- 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
- Uncontrolled descent
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft weight and balance, not used
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
- Pilot in command › Performance data, not used
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS LANDED IN A PASTURE ABOUT 2 MILES FROM THE ARPT AFTER THE ACFT BEGAN TO DESCEN 'BEHIND THE POWER CURVE' AFTER TAKEOFF. THE PLT SAID HE USED FULL POWER FOR TAKEOFF BUT THE TAKEOFF WAS LONGER THAN NORMAL. THE DA WAS COMPUTED TO BE 9286 FT. AFTER TAKEOFF THE PLT SAID HE RAISED THE LNDG GEAR BUT A WITNESS DISAGREED. THE FLT THEN REDUCED PWR AND AS RPM WAS REDUCED, NOTED THAT THE MP WAS ONLY 24 IN. THE ACFT BEGAN A DESCENT WHICH THE PLT SAID COULD NOT BE STOPPED WITH POWER SO HE LANDED GEAR DOWN IN A PASTURE. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH 2 DITCHES AND A FENCE DURING THE 1500 FT ROLL. THE ENGS WERE FOUND TO OPERATE NORMALLY AFTER THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN85FA125
- Event ID
- 20001214X36424
- Case number
- DEN85FA125
- 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: 794a3c23808af26024c076c11c160684630d3b118d24865c305a071d3a33faf6; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:17:43.474Z.