DEN05LA141 · Denight 100D2
Denight 100D2 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From 48V · Erie, CO to Bartlesville Municipal Airport (BVO)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05LA141
- 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
- 2 · 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
Denight 100D2
- Aircraft type
- Denight 100
- 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
- N197D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 48V · Erie, COTo Bartlesville Municipal Airport (BVO), Bartlesville, OK
- 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 · 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/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, 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 at approximately 0645. At approximately 0700, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) began receiving an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) signal. An aerial search failed to locate the source of the transmission. A ground search was organized at approximately 1630, and the wreckage was located that afternoon. On scene examination of the airplane showed damage characteristics consistent with a stall/spin. An autopsy revealed no evidence of physical incapacitation or impairment. Toxicological test was negative for carbon monoxide, cyanide, ethanol, and drugs. Later examination of the engine revealed the right carburetor float was hydraulically crushed and the bowl was dry. The carburetor air box was compromised during impact. There was fuel in the totalizer. Both magnetos sparked. Engine compression was confirmed on the #2 and #3 cylinders. Engine compression was not possible on cylinders #1 and #4 because impact damage to the rear accessory case compromised camshaft continuity. All four cylinders were boroscoped and revealed no anomalies. Oil pump continuity was confirmed
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed resulting in an inadvertent stall/spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05LA141
- Event ID
- 20050920X01495
- Case number
- DEN05LA141
- 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: 1692b7407dc7fc25f9c03346baf6e04e672dc547dd456e1b63ef8087ab0476e9; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:53:21.099Z.