CEN16LA247 · Beech E 90
Mile Hi Skydiving Center Beech E 90 · Accident while maneuvering
From Vance Brand Airport (LMO) to Vance Brand Airport (LMO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA247
- 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
- 0
- 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 E 90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft E-90
- 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
- N92DV
- Operator
- Mile Hi Skydiving Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vance Brand Airport (LMO), Longmont, COTo Vance Brand Airport (LMO), Longmont, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1978)
- 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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
The commercial pilot was conducting a skydiving flight with 15 skydivers on board. The pilot reported that, at 5,000 ft above ground level, he reconfigured the airplane for a climb and activated the interior amber jump lights, which indicated that the door could be opened to spot the jump zone. Two jumpers safely exited the airplane at that time. The pilot then initiated another climb. The pilot did not recall any jump indication lights being illuminated in the cabin during the climb, and none of the remaining jumpers notified him of any illuminated jump lights. However, three of the jumpers later reported that the amber jump light remained illuminated at that time. One of the jumpers informed a senior jumper from the operator that the light was on, but he indicated that it was not a problem, and the jumpers all affirmed that no one informed the pilot that the amber light remained on.
The three jumpers reported that, before reaching the jump location, when the pilot was in the process of configuring the airplane for the jump, the jump indication lights changed from amber to green, which is intended to indicate that it is safe to jump and prompted the jumpers to climb out of the airplane; however, the airplane was not correctly configured or at the proper airspeed for the jump. The three jumpers noted that the airspeed seemed faster than normal because they had difficulty holding onto the airplane. One of the jumpers, who struggled to swing his leg normally, jumped from the airplane and then struck the horizontal stabilizer. The pilot reported that he felt the flight controls jolt and heard a "thud" sound and then switched the jump lights to red and instructed the remaining jumpers to remain in the airplane. The pilot descended and landed the airplane without further incident. The jumper who struck the stabilizer was unable to move his arms and descended with his back to the ground until his automatic activation device deployed his parachute. He was subsequently transported to the hospital with serious injuries.
The accident is consistent with the pilot not reconfiguring the jump light system properly following the first jump and unintentionally turning on the green jump light before the airplane was configured properly or at the proper airspeed for a safe jump and not recognizing that he had done so. Additionally, the senior jumper did not tell the pilot that the amber light remained on after the first jump, and the jumpers improperly decided to exit the airplane even though they recognized the airplane was at a higher-than-normal airspeed.
Probable cause
The pilot's unintentional activation of the green jump light before the airplane was properly configured and slowed for a jump and the jumpers' improper decision to continue with the jump after they recognized that the airplane was at a higher-than-normal airspeed. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s failure to recognize that the amber light remained on after the first jump and the senior jumper's decision not to inform the pilot that the amber light remained on following the first jump.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA247
- Event ID
- 20160706X14221
- Case number
- CEN16LA247
- 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: 3958a7a6ce5e3fa45ab358b0945c5318bd3b79b16dabb2524c7c1180badb9235; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:37:28.969Z.