DEN05FA044 · Cessna 172S
Cessna 172S · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05FA044
- 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
Cessna 172S
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N849SP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW), Roswell, NMTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane took off on a local IFR flight plan so the pilot could do instrument approaches in preparation for his commercial pilot flight check. The pilot was given radar vectors and accomplished two ILS approaches to the southwest runway. On climb out, the pilot was cleared direct to the CHISUM VOR, and was cleared to fly the procedure turn for the VOR BRAVO approach. While on the procedure turn and on a northerly heading, the airplane disappeared from radar. The local controller attempted to re-establish radio communications with the airplane, but was unable. Several witnesses in vehicles driving westbound on a highway stated they saw the airplane in the air traveling northwest at approximately 2,500 feet above the ground. One witness stated the airplane "suddenly started downward at a steep angle and crashed." Another witness said it took only a few seconds from the time the airplane started downward until it impacted on the highway. A third witness said he saw "a green and red light coming down at a high angle and very fast," and he "heard [a] loud noise, not [an] explosion." The witness said he then went through the debris across the highway and smelled fuel. The weather conditions at the airport, 281 degrees at 12.6 nautical miles from the accident site were clear skies, calm winds, 10 miles visibility, temperature 39 degrees Fahrenheit (F), dew point 31 degrees F, and altimeter 30.19 inches. At the time of the accident it was night. The light conditions were dark. The airplane was destroyed on impact. An examination of the airplane showed no anomalies.
Probable cause
the pilot not maintaining control of the aircraft resulting in an uncontrolled descent and collision on a highway. Factors contributing to the accident were the dark night and the pilot experiencing spatial disorientation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05FA044
- Event ID
- 20050105X00015
- Case number
- DEN05FA044
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-12-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6661fb6a1c11d6f09980bc5f6d76edb9b04b336e8a622f265345c67572d31273; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:10:09.877Z.