CEN14FA071 · Cessna 182E
Ray Veatch Agency Cessna 182E · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Blake Field (KAJZ) to Crawford Airport (99V)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14FA071
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N3087Y
- Operator
- Ray Veatch Agency
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blake Field (KAJZ), Delta, COTo Crawford Airport (99V), Crawford, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1962)
- 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot departed from an uncontrolled airport to rendezvous with an examiner for his private pilot practical test. Weather conditions at the departure airport were overcast clouds at 600 feet and 4 miles visibility. After takeoff, the airplane impacted terrain about 2 miles from the departure end of the runway, on the extended runway centerline. The debris field was consistent with a high speed impact at a flat pitch attitude. The student pilot most likely attempted to climb through the overcast clouds and lost control, then exited the clouds in a steep dive and was attempting to recover from the dive as the airplane impacted the ground.
The primary flight instructor stated the student pilot had a "go-go-go" type personality and led a fast-paced life with his business. He intended to use the airplane for his business. Further, the student pilot was concerned about getting his examination done before the airplane's annual inspection. The flight instructor subsequently learned that the student pilot was under additional personal and business stressors. The student pilot's decision to depart into poor weather conditions was most likely influenced by these life stressors, both self-imposed and external. The student pilot had 0.6 flight hours of simulated instrument training recorded in his logbook, as opposed to the Federal Aviation Administration requirement of 3 flight hours for the private pilot practical test.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s decision to attempt flight into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in a loss of control and ground impact.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14FA071
- Event ID
- 20131129X32256
- Case number
- CEN14FA071
- 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. 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: b823955c50e0eeaf6f6801ea1e6355d173fd116cca81ab06b35cdbc05d885837; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:07:52.461Z.