CEN16FA328 · Aero Commander S2R UNDESIGNAT
Rocky Mountain… Aero Commander S2R UNDESIGNAT · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From Monte Vista Municipal Airport (MVI) to Monte Vista Municipal Airport (MVI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16FA328
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aero Commander S2R UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander S2
- 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
- N8870Q
- Operator
- Rocky Mountain
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monte Vista Municipal Airport (MVI), Monte Vista, COTo Monte Vista Municipal Airport (MVI), Monte Vista, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1969)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
The commercial pilot was conducting his sixth low-level agricultural application flight of the day. One witness reported that the airplane made a turn, appeared to stall at the top of the turn, and spiraled to the ground. Witnesses who responded immediately to the scene found the pilot unresponsive and assisted in removing him from the wreckage. Examination of the accident site indicated that the airplane impacted a wheat field in a vertical, nose-down attitude. Postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any evidence of preimpact failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot's cell phone records indicated that the pilot was texting at times that coincided with some of the application flights, including the accident flight. However, there was insufficient information to determine whether airborne PED use played a role in the accident flight.
The toxicology testing on the pilot was positive for diphenhydramine, which is potentially impairing; however, it is unlikely that the pilot was significantly impaired by the small amount of drug found in his system. Exposure to the chemicals that the pilot was applying on the day of the accident can lead to various topical, airway, or neurological symptoms; however, there were no reports that the pilot complained of anything or displayed any unusual behavior on the day of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during a low-level maneuver, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16FA328
- Event ID
- 20160819X53243
- Case number
- CEN16FA328
- 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: e030d9a297a3df9dc6c6fac664f72670ab151ab7671205c416fd32aaae9c1394; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:58:44.482Z.