Tailwind Cessna 421B accident
Cessna 421B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Taos Regional Airport (SKX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN84LA048
- 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 421B
- 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
- N768T
- Operator
- Tailwind
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Taos Regional Airport (SKX), Taos, NMTo 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 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, poor
- Pilot in command › Visual/aural perception
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH THE SNOW TO THE SIDE AND SHORT OF THE RWY DURING THE APPROACH TO LAND. THE PLT SAID THE ACFT WAS BLOWN OFF LINE AND HIS VISION WAS OBSCURED BY BLOWING SNOW. THE ACFT HIT REIL LIGHTS AND STOPPED 760 FT SHORT OF THE APPROACH END OF THE RWY. THE WEATHER WAS 3000 FT SCATTERED, ESTIMATED 4000 FT OVERCAST, VISIBILITY 6 MILES IN LIGHT SNOW SHOWERS, WIND FROM 310 DEGREES AT 15 KTS. 30 MINUTES LATER WAS INDEFINITE CEILING 100 FT OBSCURED VISILBITY 2 MILES IN BLOWING SNOW AND FOG, WIND FROM 330 DEGREES AT 15 KTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN84LA048
- Event ID
- 20001214X45274
- Case number
- DEN84LA048
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 80c3915189345e290799c6e10aeb2f86179da84eb8b045a0f05f0f7ad1e2de8a; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:46:42.750Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N768T; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.