DEN06FA132 · Beech 35-C33
Beech 35-C33 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Taos Regional Airport (SKX) to Telluride Regional Airport (TEX)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06FA132
- 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
- 4 · 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 35-C33
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N5893J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Taos Regional Airport (SKX), Taos, NMTo Telluride Regional Airport (TEX), Telluride, 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 possible
- Pilot in command › Flight into adverse weather, 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 airplane was on the final leg of a cross-country flight to Telluride, Colorado. Denver Center picked up the airplane on radar approximately 38 miles northwest of Taos, New Mexico, heading toward Pagosa Springs, Colorado, at 15,800 feet. Just southeast of Pagosa Springs, the airplane turned toward the southwest. Approximately 5 minutes later, the airplane resumed a west-northwesterly course toward the Telluride area. Approximately 25 miles south of the Telluride Regional Airport, the airplane made a turn to the north. The airplane had descended to 15,000 feet. One minute later, radar showed the airplane in a 600 foot-per-minute descent that eventually took the airplane below 14,000 feet. Approximately 12 miles south of the airport, the airplane turned to the west-northwest. The airplane was at 13,900 feet on a course toward Wilson Peak and the Lizard Head Pass area. Approximately 3 miles southeast of Wilson Peak (elevation 14,246 feet), radar showed the airplane enter a 2,000 foot-per-minute descent. The airplane's groundspeed increased from 149 to 260 knots. The airplane leveled off momentarily at 13,400 feet and then entered a 2,000 foot-per-minute climb. The airplane's groundspeed was 191 knots. Approximately 12 seconds later, radar contact with the airplane was lost. At last contact, the airplane was at 13,500 feet and within 1 mile of the southeast face of Wilson Peak. Rescue teams located the airplane near the summit of Wilson Peak the following day. Airplane wreckage was located on all sides of the mountain. An examination of the wreckage at the scene showed no pre-impact anomalies. A meteorological study of weather conditions around Wilson Peak at the time of the accident indicated the potential for severe turbulence and rotors.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent flight into mountain wave turbulence resulting in the airplane's loss of control and subsequent impact into mountainous terrain. Factors contributing to the accident were the mountain wave turbulence and high winds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06FA132
- Event ID
- 20060925X01389
- Case number
- DEN06FA132
- 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: 3e22584665a63768a15f3374eac241a5b1d6fc8da84e7454191f827ca6ce0299; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:03:27.057Z.