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Atlas / NTSB / DEN81FA050

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DEN81FA050

1981-07-17 MEAD, Colorado, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

PIPER 602P · N68904

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

IMC

Phase of flight

D1

Operator type

D

Kind of flying

B2

Weather at impact

Sky

OBSCURATION

Aircraft history

Serial number

008718165009

Total time

104 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

668

Age

44

Cause factors

  • 64/A/29 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PREPARATION AND/OR PLANNING Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/A/03 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND BECAME LOST/DISORIENTED Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/A/04 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/A/16 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND FAILED TO OBTAIN/MAINTAIN FLYING SPEED Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 82/J/B J
    WEATHER RAIN Joint cause
  • 82/J/A J
    WEATHER LOW CEILING Joint cause
  • 82/J/X J
    WEATHER THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY Joint cause

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 2448. Source file NTSB_1981_3_2448.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.