DEN06FA043 · Cessna 182E
Cessna 182E · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Telluride Regional Airport (TEX) to Austin, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06FA043
- 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
- 3 · 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 182E
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N9298X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Telluride Regional Airport (TEX), Telluride, COTo Austin, 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
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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, 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
A witness said he "heard the airplane buzz the ranch." The witness said the airplane then flew into the power lines. After striking the power lines there was extensive damage to the airplane. Another witness said he saw and heard the airplane "buzz the ranch." He said the airplane came in once and was closer to the river (Gunnison River). The airplane came over the ranch a second time, but was closer to the house and orchard where the power lines ran. The witness heard the impact and then saw the airplane "cartwheeling" in the field. An examination of the airplane revealed no systems anomalies. Levels of TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL (MARIHUANA) and TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL CARBOXYLIC ACID (MARIHUANA) reported on FAA toxicology testing suggest that the pilot had used marijuana very recently in relation to the time of the accident, likely within 3 hours, and that the pilot was impaired by its effects at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the transmission wire resulting in the airplane's outboard wing portion to be severed, and the subsequent loss of control and ground impact. Factors contributing to the accident were the pilot's impairment from his recent marijuana use and the transmission wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06FA043
- Event ID
- 20060227X00238
- Case number
- DEN06FA043
- 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: 9d389658e1ee7ef41044a9b96b84d3ecbacb165d48f645a17f57f15254ade1b5; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:31:19.345Z.