DEN83LA054 · Cessna 207
Cessna 207 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Hector International Airport (FAR) to Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83LA054
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 207
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N1597U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hector International Airport (FAR), Fargo, NDTo Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS), Bismarck, ND
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- 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
- Fuel system, ram air/induction air › Blocked(partial)
- Induction air control/system › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE EN ROUTE, THE PLT ENCOUNTERED FREEZING RAIN AND CLIMBED TO APRX 3500 FT TO BE ON TOP OF ALL WEATHER. WHEN HE THROTTLED BACK, THE ENGINE BEGAN SURGING AND WOULD NOT PRODUCE ENOUGH POWER FOR LEVEL FLIGHT. THE PILOT KNEW THAT THE GROUND LEVEL IN THAT AREA WAS APRX 1700 TO 1900 FT MSL. AS HE DESCENDED THRU 2500 FT, HE PLACED 2 MAILBAGS ON HIS LAP. HE DIMMED THE COCKPIT LIGHTS, TURNED ON THE TAXI LIGHTS AND WINDSHIELD ALCOHOL, AND BEGAN LOOKING FOR GROUND REFERENCES. HOWEVER, HE DID NOT SEE THE GROUND UNTIL THE TIME OF IMPACT. THE PILOT BELIEVED THAT THE AUTOMATIC FEATURE OF THE ALTERNATE AIR DOOR HAD MALFUNCTIONED OR FAILED. HE REPORTED THAT HE AND ANOTHER PILOT HAD PREVIOUSLY HAD A SIMILAR PROBLEM WHEN THE SAME KIND OF WEATHER WAS ENCOUNTERED. REPORTEDLY, AT ONE TIME, THE ACFT HAD BEEN EQUIPPED WITH A MANUAL CONTROL TO OPERATE THE DOOR. BUT THIS FEATURE HAD BEEN REMOVED. DURING A FUNCTIONAL CHECK, THE ENGINE OPERATED NORMALLY. THE ALT AIR DOOR PARTS WERE TOO BADLY DAMAGED FROM IMPACT TO BE OPERATIONALLY CHKD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83LA054
- Event ID
- 20001214X41981
- Case number
- DEN83LA054
- 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 1983-01-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5c7b3e1698c1dff8c224502567034302b318739644124a276a5ab3402e008f91; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:02:10.227Z.