DEN83LA081 · Cessna 421C
Cessna 421C · Accident: overrun during takeoff
From Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC) to University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport (OUN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83LA081
- 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
- N67943
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC), Gunnison, COTo University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport (OUN), Norman, OK
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT BEGAN TAKING OFF ON RWY 06 WITH A WIND FROM 190 DEG AT 8 KTS. HE STATED THAT MAX POWER & RPM WERE OBTAINED. HE NOTED THAT HE OBTAINED 39 INCHES OF MANIFOLD PRESSURE & 2235 RPM AT 100 KTS IAS. REPORTEDLY, THE ACFT ROTATED PROPERLY, BUT BEGAN TO VIBRATE & SHUDDER & WOULD NOT LIFT OFF. THE PLT THEN LOWERED THE NOSE & ACCELERATED TO 110 KTS IAS. HOWEVER, AGAIN, THE ACFT WOULD ONLY VIBRATE & SHUDDER & WOULD NOT LIFT OFF. THE PLT THEN BEGAN ABORTING THE TAKEOFF. THE ACFT WENT OFF THE END OF THE RWY AT 70 TO 80 KTS & BECAME AIRBORNE FOR APRX 75 FT AS IT WENT OVER A DROP OFF IN THE TERRAIN. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT LANDED IN SOFT SOIL & HIGH GRASS WHERE THE GEAR COLLAPSED. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE TEMP WAS 30 DEG & SNOW WAS FALLING. THE PLT BELIEVED THE ACCIDENT RESULTED FROM COLD TEMPS ALONG WITH WATER BLOWN ONTO THE TAIL SURFACES OF THE ACFT. HE DID NOT DESCRIBE THE SURFACE CONDITION ON THE WINGS. STALL SPEED FOR THIS ACFT WAS 86 KTS AT THE MAX GROSS WT & WAS WITH WT & BALANCE LIMITS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83LA081
- Event ID
- 20001214X42408
- Case number
- DEN83LA081
- 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: 3aa8bc1e5cd1abdb996c6270ab78dd62067b1593b99fb1bbb026442ff43e69ca; retrieved 2026-09-23T22:45:12.042Z.