DEN02LA083 · Cessna 172S
Cessna 172S · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC) to Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN02LA083
- 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
Cessna 172S
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- CGKRA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), Broomfield, COTo Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT), Grand Junction, CO
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not possible
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
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 said he departed and planned to follow Interstate 70 to his destination. He said his cruise altitude was 10,500 feet, or "until higher was necessary." He said he was navigating with a World Aeronautical Chart (a visual flight rules [1:1,000,000] navigation chart). The pilot said, "after approximately 30 minutes of flight, I became aware of the narrowing of the valley and the significant rising ground elevation." When the Eisenhower Tunnel (11,000 feet) became visible, he "realized more altitude was required, but full throttle could only produce minimal positive climb." The pilot said he considered a 180 degree turn, but was concerned about stalling in such a tight turn. He "decided to try climbing through a cleared ski run, just left off I-70," but subsequently impacted rising terrain at 11,500 feet (14,992 feet density altitude). Both wings suffered rib and spar damage, the cabin overhead was bent, and the engine firewall exhibited crushing. The airplane's Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH) states that the service ceiling for this airplane was 14,000 feet.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight planning for a flight through high mountainous terrain, and the pilot committing himself to a mountainous flight path where terrain clearance was not possible. Contributing factors were the high density altitude weather condition, and the rising mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN02LA083
- Event ID
- 20020808X01329
- Case number
- DEN02LA083
- 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: 6e94dec0d3e4d6b57eeccdfe0dcd2039641b46b628d6f32fe298e042d0b04432; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:39:49.567Z.