DEN07LA119 · Cessna T206H
Cessna T206H · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC) to Shively Field (SAA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN07LA119
- 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
Cessna T206H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N97PP
- Operator
- James E. Bertelsmeyer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC), Gunnison, COTo Shively Field (SAA), Saratoga, WY
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
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 said he rotated between 65 and 70 KIAS, flew in ground effect, and then climbed to about 50 to 75 feet. There was a "significant reduction in power" and the airplane "started gyrating wildly." The "right wing stalled and struck the runway along with the right main wheel." The airplane bounced, collapsing the nose wheel, and skidded to a halt on the side of the runway. The right wing was bent up about four feet inboard on the tip. Of the six witness statements received, one reported hearing an "unusual noise." Another witness heard the engine "misfire." The engine was examined. No anomalies were noted. The lineman who had been on duty on the morning of the accident reported witnessing the entire accident sequence. He stated that full power was developed as the airplane accelerated down the runway. At the 1,000-foot marker, the airplane lifted off and assumed "a very steep angle of attitude" (approximately 15 degrees or greater), and climbed to about 15 to 25 feet above the ground. The engine began surging (it was "not rhythmic and did not stop"). The pilot leveled off and began a stabilized descent, as if he were making a forced landing, and then leveled off again. The airplane suddenly dipped to the left and pulled up to a "high angle of attitude." The airplane stalled and broke to the right and nosed into the ground.
Probable cause
An inadvertent stall during takeoff/initial climb. Contributing factors in this accident were a partial loss of engine power for reasons undetermined, and high density altitude conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN07LA119
- Event ID
- 20070820X01210
- Case number
- DEN07LA119
- 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: cb64f93c64628b06d612c1693460f9c36942691803fb88a60e0eebc82e0370ce; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:46:54.381Z.