DEN02FA105 · Piper PA-24-260
Piper PA-24-260 and Great Lakes Airlines Beech 1900D · Accident: near collision between aircraft during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN02FA105
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Piper PA-24-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N8822P
- Operator
- John R. Ipson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NVTo Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS), Rock Springs, WY
- 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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
- Near collision between aircraft
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Beech 1900D
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- N240GL
- Operator
- Great Lakes Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, COTo Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS), Rock Springs, WY
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Near collision between aircraft
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › Clearance, not attained
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not attained
- Pilot in command › Evasive maneuver, intentional
- Pilot of other aircraft › Clearance, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
When they were 20 miles west of the airport, the pilot of a Piper PA-24 began making radio calls on Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF). The pilot reported his position, announced his intentions to land on runway 21, and requested traffic advisories. He heard no response. He made traffic pattern position calls on entering the pattern, on downwind, on base leg, and on final. The pilot said that over the approach end of runway 21 with the wheels just about to touchdown, his wife shouted on the intercom "look at that plane" and threw her arm across the pilot to point at what was at their 8 o'clock position. The pilot said he saw an airplane, a Beech 1900 on runway 27 at a fast roll approaching the runway 21/27 intersection. The pilot said he judged that the two airplanes would meet at the intersection. The pilot applied power to the engine, pulled the nose up into a landing attitude, and veered left so as to pass behind the airplane. "Seconds later we struck the ground in a tail low attitude just past RW27 and to the left of RW21." The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage. The captain of the Beech said Air Route Traffic Control Center had cleared them for a visual approach to the airport. They briefed the approach for runway 27. They monitored Airport Weather Observing System and made an "in range" call to their station on the ground. The captain said at 20 to 25 miles out, he made a radio call on the CTAF and requested traffic advisories. He said he made advisory calls at 15, 10, and 5 miles from the airport and on short final for runway 27. On short final and approximately 200 feet above ground level, the captain said they received a Terrain Clearance Avoidance System traffic advisory showing "+300 feet," but then it disappeared. The captain said they touched down, rolled out and taxied to the gate. The captain said he heard no other traffic on the CTAF. Witnesses on the ground monitoring the CTAF, said they heard the Piper call inbound for runway 21 and then call three or four more times. An examination of the Piper showed the airplane's radio set to the CTAF. An examination of the radios on the Beech showed no anomalies. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
the pilot of the Piper and the flight crew of the Beech's failure to attain proper clearance from each other during their respective landings and the intentional evasive maneuver by the pilot to avoid the other airplane. Factors contributing to the accident were inadequate visual lookout by the pilot and the crew of the other airplane and the inadvertent stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN02FA105
- Event ID
- 20020919X05176
- Case number
- DEN02FA105
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, damage. 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: 7dc22f6e66b67444edce374f1a04fe6be72946fd5dbf6ee48d345674a0438340; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:58:01.888Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N240GL; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.