FTW85FA086 · Cessna 441
Cessna 441 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW85FA086
- 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
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
- N441CM
- Operator
- Clinton Manges
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, COTo 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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 › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT CRASHED APRX 1.5 MILES SOUTH OF THE DEPARTURE END OF RWY 17 DURING AN ATTEMPTED RWY 17 NDB APCH. THE ACFT WAS CLEARED FOR THE APCH AT 2012 CST AND THE PLT CANCELED IFR REPORTING THE ARPT IN SIGHT AT 2014. A WITNESS LOCATED APRX 1 MILE SOUTH OF THE APRT REPORTED SEEING THE ACFT LIGHTS THROUGH THE CLOUDS, MIST AND FOG AS IT WAS TRAVELING SOUTH-SOUTHEAST. THE ACFT IMPACTED THE GROUND ON A HEADING OF 035 DEGS IN A 10 TO 15 DEG LEFT BANK. RADAR DATA INDICATES THE ACFT WAS APRX 8 MILES FROM THE ARPT WHEN IFR WAS CANCELED. WITNESSES STATED VISIBILITY IN THE AREA WAS ABOUT 1/8 OF A MILE DURING THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW85FA086
- Event ID
- 20001214X41778
- Case number
- FTW85FA086
- 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 1984-12-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 960bfafad23e8d777eabde12bea52b7d691ad6fbc5cb2df6cce3c519c9319e2d; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:11:41.691Z.