DEN02FA050 · Beech M35
Beech M35 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN02FA050
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Beech M35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N9775R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY), Greeley, 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was an insurance agent and minister who had recently been arrested and indicted by the State of Colorado for felony theft with respect to his insurance practice. The pilot was released from custody after posting bail on May 3, 2002., and was scheduled to appear in court on June 26, 2002. On the day of the accident, the pilot sent several electronic mail messages to several members of his church congregation informing them that he was resigning as their minister and asking them for forgiveness for the "shame and reproach" he had brought on the church. The pilot's wife reported her husband missing the next afternoon, and the wreckage was located about four hours later. According to recorded radar data, a target was detected departing the airport area and proceeding towards a popular tourist attraction to the northeast. The target circled the area, then turned back towards the airport before disappearing. On-scene investigation disclosed no evidence of preimpact airframe, engine, propeller, or flight control failure/malfunction. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. All aircraft maintenance was current and up to date. The pathologist said "the manner of death is suicide," and the county coroner ruled the death as a suicide.
Probable cause
controlled descent into terrain for reasons undetermined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN02FA050
- Event ID
- 20020618X00907
- Case number
- DEN02FA050
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-06-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f1c2ced3a0151e9366ee3ebe4510ae5f4d78b39add9f853bce6d26faf6243df2; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:00:13.193Z.