DEN82FTE27 · Vari-EZE
Vari-EZE · Accident: overrun during takeoff
From 2VI · Pagosa Springs, CO to IV5 · Boulder, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN82FTE27
- 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
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Vari-EZE
- 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
- N123EZ
- Operator
- Bruce M. Muirhead · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2VI · Pagosa Springs, COTo IV5 · Boulder, 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, delayed
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DUE TO AN APPROACHING THUNDERSTORM FROM THE WEST, THE PILOT ELECTED TO MAKE A TAKEOFF ON RUNWAY 04 WITH A QUARTERING TAIL WIND. THE SURFACE WAS WET AND THERE WAS ABOUT A 20 FT RISE IN THE LAST HALF OF THE RUNWAY. THE RUNWAY WAS 5600 FT LONG, BUT ITS ELEVATION WAS 7674 FT AND THE TEMPERATURE WAS 65 DEG. THE PILOT STATED THAT WHEN HE WAS AT ABOUT MID-FIELD DURING THE TAKEOFF, HE HAD ACCELERATED TO 60 KTS, BUT THE HILL AT THE EAST END WOULD HAVE MADE IT DIFFICULT TO FLY OFF, SO HE DECIDED TO ABORT. HE WAS UNABLE TO STOP ON THE REMAINING WET RUNWAY. AFTER DEPARTING THE RUNWAY, THE AIRCRAFT WENT THROUGH A FENCE AND DOWN A ROCKY SLOPE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN82FTE27
- Event ID
- 20020917X04522
- Case number
- DEN82FTE27
- 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: 8dec56188d5e2fd06c2361b61d275380e7bdd08a3d7e6e43b951eaf0e6aaaf1e; retrieved 2026-09-24T00:58:46.972Z.