DEN83LA175 · Cessna U206E
Cessna U206E · Accident: forced landing en route
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83LA175
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna U206E
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N9403G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NM
- 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
- Forced landing
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bryce Canyon, UT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID THAT WHILE ENROUTE TO ALBUQUERQUE FROM LAS VEGAS HE ENCOUNTERED DETERIORATING WEATHER THAT HE COULD NOT GET AROUND HE TRIED TO CLIMB OVER IT BUT WAS UNABLE. ONCE CLEAR OF CLOUD HE DESCENDED TRYING TO GET BACK TO BRYCE CANYON. AS THE CEILING LOWERED HE BEGAN TO LOOK FOR A PLACE TO LAND. THE RAIN CONTINUED AND HE WAS FORCED TO LAND IMMEDIATELY IN A FIELD. AFTER TOUCHDOWN THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK A RUT AND WENT INTO ROUGHER TERRAIN. THE AIRCRAFT THEN STRUCK A MOUNTAIN OF DIRT AND ROCKS SHEARING THE NOSE WHEEL OFF, STANDING THE AIRPLANE ON END, TIPPING OVER TO HIT THE LEFT WING AND FALLING BACK ON THE MAIN GEAR. ACCORDING TO THE FSS SPECIALIST THE PILOT WAS ADVISED OF DETERIORATING WEATHER ALONG THE MOUNTAINS IN EASTERN AND SOUTHERN UTAH (VICINITY OF BRYCE CANYON).
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83LA175
- Event ID
- 20001214X43719
- Case number
- DEN83LA175
- 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: bf325e54203f42f3f73a819434f92d55ad0bd1061659768e28d9a264ea7a3aba; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:43:19.026Z.