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DEN84FA223 · Cessna 310H

11 Mar 1984 · Questa, NM, United States

Cessna 310H · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route

From Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC) to Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO)

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Event

NTSB case
DEN84FA223
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

Cessna 310H

Aircraft type
Cessna 310
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
N1111Q
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC), Gunnison, COTo Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO), Conroe, TX
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 · 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 encounter with weather
Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
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, inadequate
  • Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
  • Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
  • Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, disregarded
  • Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, poor
  • Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH RISING TERRAIN AT THE 12500 FT LEVEL.THE SUMMIT WAS ABOUT 200 FT ABOVE THE CRASH SITE. A FRIEND OF THE PLT WAS INTERVIEWED BY THE IIC FROM NTSB. THIS FRIEND WAS THE HOST OF THE 3 ACCIDENT VICTIMS FOR THE WEEKEND AT HIS GUNNISON RANCH. THE HOST, BECAUSE HE WAS A PLT ASKED THE GUEST PLT TO POSTPONE THE FLT. THE HOST WAS ASSURED THAT IFTHE WX CONDITIONS WERE NOT GOOD THE FLT WOULD RETURN TO THE RANCH. THE GUEST PLT WAS DESCRIBED BY THE HOST AS BEING 'THEBEST PASTURE PLT I EVER KNEW.' HE ALSO STATED THE PLT HATED TO USE THE RADIO, NEVER FILED A FLT PLAN AND WAS NOT VERSED IN OMNI. ONMI IS SLANG FOR VOR NAVIGATION OR VERY HIGH FREQUENCY OMNIDIRECTIONAL RADIO RANGE. THE PLT HAD BEEN ADVISED BY FSS SPECIALISTS THAT VFR FLT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED ALONG HIS PLANNED ROUTE BECAUSE OF ICING LEVELS & MOUNTAIN OBSCURATION. THE PLT CHOSE TO GO ANYWAY AND DEPARTED WITHOUT FILING A FLT PLAN.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DEN84FA223
Event ID
20001214X39005
Case number
DEN84FA223
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 1984-03-12.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 6806b08e9ea0a724b70e5a42b0f12055e409227cb14bb37fd0bfe1dc3b8ce71e; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:37:07.378Z.