DEN82FA054 · Beech M35
General Aircraft Sales & Servi Beech M35 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From C · Norman, OK to C · Denver, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN82FA054
- 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
- 4 · 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
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
- N9733R
- Operator
- General Aircraft Sales & Servi
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From C · Norman, OKTo C · Denver, 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
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight controls, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE WX BRIEFING THE PLT WAS ADVISED THAT THE WX ALONG HIS PROPOSED ROUTE OF FLT WOULD BE GENERALLY GOOD VFR WITH THE EXCEPTION OF POSSIBLE TURBULENCE & THAT BLOWING DUST WOULD BE THE BIG PROBLEM. THERE WERE PIREPS OF 65K WINDS AT 3,000 FT OVER OKLAHOMA CITY WHICH WAS FORECASTING VISIBILITIES DROPPING TO 3-4 MI IN BLOWING DUST BY NOON. THE PLT'S FORMER FLT EXAMINER TRIED TO CONVINCE THE PLT TO POSTPONE THE TRIP DUE TO HIGH WINDS ENROUTE. AT APPROXIMATELY 1015 A GROUND WITNES ON A ROAD NEAR THE LAMAR ARPT STATED HE SAW A DUST CLOUD NORTH OF TOWN RISING TO AN ALTITUDE OF APPROXIMATELY 2,000 FT. BY THE TIME THE WITNESS REACHED THE ARPT VISIBILITY WAS LESS THAN 100 FT WITH AN ESTIMATED WIND OF 60 MPH. ANOTHER WITNESS WHO HEARD THE CRASH SAID IT WAS TOO DIRTY TO SEE ANYTHING. THE LA JUNTA FSS, LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 32 MI WEST OF THE ACCIDENT SITE, 0958 & 1058 OBSERVATIONS INCLUDED SURFACE WINDS GUSTING TO 57K & SKY COVERAGE OF 0.6.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN82FA054
- Event ID
- 20020917X01971
- Case number
- DEN82FA054
- 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: e92eed94cf226f18356ae8f730c82186972b28656bd83e19b91613f1fc54eaef; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:33:23.867Z.