DEN03FA028 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Steamboat Springs Bob Adams Field (SBS) to Fremont County Airport (1V6)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03FA028
- 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
- 1 · 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
Piper PA-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N7989C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Steamboat Springs Bob Adams Field (SBS), Steamboat Spgs, COTo Fremont County Airport (1V6), Canon City, 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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/mush
- 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 › Clearance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
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 departed with three passengers and three dogs, but only two seats. The airplane had been reconfigured (STC SA00352DE) for parachute jumping operations. The STC included the stipulation that the airplane could be used only for parachutist launching operations. Also, Title 14 CFR Part 91.107, (a)(3), states that each occupant of a civil aircraft must be provided with an approved seat [the fatally injured passenger was not] with seat belt, for movement on the surface, takeoff, and landing operations. The pilot proceeded to fly up a heavily forested mountain valley with a 14 to 18 knot tail wind (increasing ground speed while reducing climb performance). The airplane's center of gravity was calculated to be 2.33 inches aft of allowable limitations. Due to insufficient altitude, the airplane impacted tree covered terrain with approximately 4 feet of snow at 9,527 feet (10,200 feet density altitude). One occupant was trapped under aircraft debris for 4 to 5 hours; she died shortly after reaching the hospital. An examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision making resulting in insufficient altitude to fly over the mountain, and the subsequent inadvertent stall/mush into tree covered mountainous terrain. Contributing factors were the tail wind and high density altitude weather conditions, the airplane's aft center of gravity condition exceeding limitations, and the improper use of the airplane by the pilot [STC limitation to haul parachutist only; two passengers flying without seats].
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03FA028
- Event ID
- 20030107X00026
- Case number
- DEN03FA028
- 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: 12b8fb2face46a87ebe2d4dd520d395461480233aef69e7af3238e27f73d1ce2; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:32:19.758Z.