Air US Flight 716
Air U.S. Handly Page HP-137 and Sky'S West Par… Cessna TU206A · Mid-air collision
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 15 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 3 serious · 1 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Handly Page HP-137
- Aircraft type
- Handly Page HP-137
- 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
- N11360
- Operator
- Air U.S.
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver, COTo Gillette, 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 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Collision with aircraft - both 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
Aircraft 2 · Cessna TU206A
- 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
- N4862F
- Operator
- Sky'S West Par…
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Not stated
- Survivors
- 4
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Not stated
- Route
- From Fort Collins/Loveland Municipal Airport, Colorado, United StatesTo Fort Collins/Loveland Municipal Airport, Colorado, United States
- 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 (flying club)
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Collision with aircraft - both 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
- Personnel › Other
- Personnel › Pilot of other aircraft
- Pilot in command › Failed to follow approved procedures, directives, etc.
- Pilot in command › Failed to see and avoid other aircraft
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Loveland, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Air US Flight 716 (flight number: US716) was a domestic scheduled flight of the regional airline Air US on 17 April 1981 from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado to Gillette-Campbell County Airport in Wyoming. On the flight, near Loveland, Colorado, the Handley Page HP.137 Jetstream aircraft being used collided with a Cessna TU-206A that had taken off on a parachute flight. All 13 people on board the passenger aircraft and two of six people on board the Cessna were killed in the accident; the remaining four occupants were able to save themselves by parachuting before their aircraft crashed.
Accident sequence
The aircraft took off at 15:46 from Denver-Stapleton Airport for the flight to Gillette. At 15:59 the pilots contacted Denver Center and requested to maintain flight level 130, which was approved. In the same area, a Cessna TU206 (N4862F, operated by Sky‘s West Parachute Center) was climbing from Fort Collins/Loveland Municipal Airport to flight level 155. The Cessna had taken off from this airport at 15:30 on the second parachute jump flight of the day. The Cessna was flying a climbing left turn in a northwesterly direction when the Air US Jetstream struck it from behind. The propeller of the Jetstream's left engine cut through the rear fuselage section of the Cessna, which led to the immediate loss of control of both aircraft. Two of the parachutists were killed in the aircraft in the collision. The pilot and three parachutists fell out of the aircraft and parachuted to the ground. The remains of the Cessna crashed into an open field. The Jetstream struck an open field in an almost vertical attitude about 4,000 feet northeast of the Cessna wreckage.
Cause of the accident
The National Transportation Safety Board took over the investigation into the cause of the accident. The investigators placed responsibility for the accident on the pilot of the Cessna, since he had failed to establish communication with air traffic control in Denver. The Cessna's entry into controlled airspace above 12,500 feet without an altitude-encoding transponder (Mode C), the practice of Denver Center of routinely tolerating Sky's West parachute jump operations above 12,500 feet without a Mode C transponder, and the failure of the pilots of both aircraft to see and avoid the other aircraft had contributed to the accident, as had the fact that existing regulations did not prohibit parachuting on or in the immediate vicinity of federal airways.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Air-US-Flug 716” (revision 254619590, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB remarks
OTR ACFT,PRCHT OPN ABV 12500FT WO ENCODING XPONDER/COM,CTR CONDONED.REGS PMTD JUMPS IN/ADJ TO AWY.
CLBD INTO CTLD AIRSPACE WO COM/ENCODING EXPONDERCTR CONDONED OPN.PRCHT JUMPS PMTD IN/ADJ TO AWYS.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Air-US-Flug 716
- Article
- Air-US-Flug 716
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 254619590 · 2025-03-28 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q133273587
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19810417P086886
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Air-US-Flug 716" (page 13295757, revision 254619590), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NTSB19810417P086886 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19810417P086886: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19810417P086886
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19810417P086886: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19810417P086886: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19810417P086886: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc), Part 91: General aviation (flying club)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19810417P086886: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19810417P086886: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Air US Flight 716" and NTSB case NTSB19810417P086886, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.