DEN86FA020 · Piper PA-230-250
Piper PA-230-250 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Millard Airport (MLE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN86FA020
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-230-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-230
- 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
- N1909T
- Operator
- William J. Parker · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Millard Airport (MLE), Omaha, NETo 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
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › IFR procedure, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Navigation receiver, not selected
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, exceeded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Englewood, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT HAD NEW AVIONICS AND AUTOPILOT SYSTEM INSTALLED IN THE ACFT PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. NTAP DATA INDICATED THAT THE ACFT DID NOT ATTAIN THE ASSIGNED ALT OF 8200 FT PRIOR TO REACHING THE OUTER MARKER. THE ACFT DID NOT GET ESTABLISHED ON THE LOCALIZER COURSE FOR RWY 34R AND THE RATE OF DESCENT INCREASED AFTER PASSAGE OF THE OUTER MARKER. THE ACFT IMPACTED HILLY TERRAIN AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED WITH THE LANDING GEAR AND FLAPS IN THE UP POSITION, APRX 1 MILE NORTH OF THE MARKER. POST CRASH EXAM OF ACFT REVEALED NO. 1 NAV RADIO WAS TUNED TO 117.0, THE DENVER VOR FREQ. THE STANDBY NAV FREQ WAS 111.3, THE LOCALIZER FREQ FOR RWY 34R. THE INBOUND HEADING FOR 34R IS 347 DEGREES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN86FA020
- Event ID
- 20001214X38213
- Case number
- DEN86FA020
- 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: 1d9bf5e5a8613c87d0b7c724bd192535384c7fa670c794f56fe069999edaf3a9; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:46:54.675Z.