DEN03LA089 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Afton Municipal Airport (KAFO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03LA089
- 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
- 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
Beech A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N2106L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Afton Municipal Airport (KAFO), Afton, WYTo not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 collision with object
- 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 › Climb, inadequate
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 had three passengers and 50 gallons of fuel on board when he made the first scenic flight. The density altitude was reported to be 7,200 feet msl. On the second flight, he had another three passengers and 38 gallons of fuel. Density altitude had increased to 8,500 feet msl. The mixture was leaned. The pilot said "the plane did not develop the same amount of power as on the previous takeoff" and the takeoff roll was longer. "The plane rotated approximately 200 yards before the departure end of the runway, and did not accelerate beyond 70 knots." He lowered the nose to gain airspeed. Airspeed slowly increased and the airplane "was ascending at about the same rate as the terrain. Approximately eight seconds after take off, I felt a slight surge in power and lifted the nose." He then heard a "pop" and "felt a slight shudder." He concluded he had "grazed over the top of some object with the stinger at the rear of the plane." Concerned about possible damage to the airplane, the pilot radioed the airport manager and asked that he inspect the airplane when he made a low pass over the airport. He lowered the landing gear and flew over the runway. The airport manager advised him that "everything looked fine." The pilot then proceeded with the flight. As the passengers disembarked, they noticed the rear foot step had been knocked off. Further investigation revealed a gash under the right wing, 2 feet outboard from the fuselage, that extended from just aft of the leading edge to the flap. Based on a maximum gross weight of 3,600 pounds and a density altitude of 8,500 feet, it was computed that the airplane would require 2,100 feet for the takeoff roll and would climb approximately 600 feet per minute. According to the engine manufacturer, a full power setting is to be used for pre-takeoff leaning on all normally-aspirated reciprocating engines. This information is contained in the various engine handbooks. If the engine were to be leaned at a lower power setting, the mixture would become richer as power was increased beyond the setting used for leaning, and would result in lower rpm and reduced horsepower.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to achieve an adequate climb rate, resulting in an inflight collision with the sign. Contributing factors were the pilot's improper mixture leaning procedure, the high density altitude, his failure to abort the takeoff in a timely manner, and the highway sign near the end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03LA089
- Event ID
- 20030603X00771
- Case number
- DEN03LA089
- 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: 2a8ada8240cfa67fbc42e87689353510d860dba1be151b3a01a6e02b79725ad6; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:15:38.169Z.