DEN82FA057 · Mooney M20B
Mooney M20B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From OVZ · Salida, CO to Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN82FA057
- 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
- 2 · 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
Mooney M20B
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M20
- 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
- N74734
- Operator
- Trueman C. Wood · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From OVZ · Salida, COTo Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC), Gunnison, 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 into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
AFTER DEPARTING SALIDA AT APPROXIMATELY 0820 THE PLT RADIOED OVER UNICOM THAT THE CLOUDS IN THE LOCAL AREA HAD BASES OF 12,500 FT MSL & TOPS AT 16,500 FT MSL. ABOUT 15 MIN LATER THE ACFT IMPACTED A MOUNTAIN AT THE 13,500 FT LEVEL. THERE WERE FLT PRECAUTIONS OVER & NEAR THE MOUNTAINS OF WYOMING & COLORADO FOR OCCASIONAL MODERATE TURBULENCE BELOW 20,000 FT WITH STRONG UP DRAFTS ALONG THE EASTERN SLOPES. ALSO MOUNTAINS OF WYOMING & COLORADO OCCASIONALLY OBSCURED ABOVE 7,000 TO 10,000 FT WITH CLOUDS & SNOW. AT 0845 A HELICOPTER PLT REPORTED UNABLE TO MAINTAIN VFR OVER THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE FROM CORONA PASS TO ESTES PARK DUE TO BLOWING SNOW & CLOUDS OBSCURING THE MOUNTAINS. THE PAX HELD A COMMERCIAL CERTIFICATE WITH AN INSTRUMENT RATING BUT REPORTEDLY DID NOT MEET THE CURRENCY REQUIREMENTS FOR IFR FLT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN82FA057
- Event ID
- 20020917X01973
- Case number
- DEN82FA057
- 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: b4148489579ef96a70489b96edf86389ce7c8c70f6799e962f7b137e7c4d0296; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:33:03.306Z.