DEN08FA152 · Gulfstream American Corp AA-5A
Underwood Aerial Patrol Gulfstream American Corp AA-5A · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY) to Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN08FA152
- 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
Gulfstream American Corp AA-5A
- Aircraft type
- Gulfstream American AA-5
- 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
- N26930
- Operator
- Underwood Aerial Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY), Moab, UTTo Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS), Rock Springs, 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- Defining eventThe 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
- Aerodynamic 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witness statements and recovered GPS data revealed that the commercial pilot and passenger were conducting aerial patrol of an underground pipeline. GPS data overlaid on a map of the pipeline route indicate that the pilot flew a track that was offset to the right of the pipeline, and then initiate a 90-degree left turn during the last 30 seconds of flight. During the offset and start of the turn, the airplane climbed 102 feet and decelerated from 95 miles per hour to 67 miles per hour. Density altitude was about 9,350 feet. Impact signatures and wreckage distribution indicated the airplane impacted terrain in a steep nose-low attitude, consistent with an aerodynamic stall. Examination of the wreckage showed no evidence of any pre-impact mechanical anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during a turn, resulting in an unrecoverable aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN08FA152
- Event ID
- 20081003X65756
- Case number
- DEN08FA152
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 05103b6c35eae3f2a5b660548e0a84807d10568e192f498235c59e202b6ae9e8; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:31:28.586Z.