DEN02LA062 · Stinson 108-3
Stinson 108-3 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From OOV · Falcon, CO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN02LA062
- 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
- 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
Stinson 108-3
- Aircraft type
- Stinson 108
- 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
- N6968M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From OOV · Falcon, 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
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 reported that on takeoff roll and at 40 miles per hour, he raised the tail of the airplane. Shortly after, the airplane started moving to the left of the center of the runway. The pilot reported he applied right rudder, but the airplane continued moving left as if a brake was dragging. The pilot reduced power in an attempt to abort the takeoff, but the airplane continued left off of the runway into the grass. The propeller struck the ground and the airplane went up on its nose and over on its back. An examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies. The reported winds at the Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 9 miles south-southwest of the airport was 100 degrees at 17 knots, gusting to 21 knots. The owner of a fixed-base operation on the airport said that the winds were out of the west that day, approximately 260 degrees, and they were gusting. The owner could not provide an estimate of the wind speed, but said the winds were strong enough that they suspended flying operations.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the takeoff roll and subsequent abort. Factors relating to the accident were the gusting crosswinds and the unsuitable terrain encountered when the airplane departed the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN02LA062
- Event ID
- 20020701X01012
- Case number
- DEN02LA062
- 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, coordinates. 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: cabc45ca60f5c09370694aff44554fb2efa82d0c92c098f8cfb7a465cac63a36; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:47:01.349Z.