NTSB CAROL · Event
Event DEN90FA109
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
THE PILOT'S FFAILURE TO MAINTAIN FLYING SPEED WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL. FACTOR WAS WIND SHEAR REPORTED OFF DEPARTURE END OF RWY.
Factual narrative
AFTER HAVING DISCUSSED THE LOCAL ADVERSE WIND CONDITIONS NEAR THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY WITH AIRPORT OPERATION PERSONNEL, THE PRIVATE PILOT ELECTED TO ATTEMPT THE FLIGHT. HE SAID THAT DURING HIS TAKEOFF CLIMB HE UNEXPECTEDLY ENCOUNTERED A VERY STRONG DOWNDRAFT. IN AN ATTEMPT TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE, THE AIRCRAFT STALLED AND COLLIDED WITH THE GROUND. DESPITE WARNING FROM AIRCRAFT PERSONNEL, THE PILOT STATED BEFORE THE FLIGHT THAT HE SHOULD ATTEMPT TO CLIMB OVER ADVERSE WINDS RATHER THAN MAINTAIN ADDITIONAL AIRSPEED. THE AIRPLANE WAS VERY NEAR MAXIMUM GROSS WEIGHT AND THE PILOT USED 20 DEGREES OF FLAPS, INSTEAD OF THE RECOMMENDED 10. THE PILOT WAS AWARE OF A BOOKLET AT THE AIRPORT WARNING OF HAZARDOUS WIND CONDITIONS, ESPECIALLY WHEN WINDS WERE SOUTHERLY IN EXCESS OF 10 M.P.H. DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS 10,760 FEET. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1990_DEN90FA109.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (wind shear, stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Optimal recovery from microburst wind shear
The flight path of a twin-jet transport aircraft is optimized in a microburst encounter during approach to landing. The objective is to execute an escape maneuver that maintains safe ground clearance …
- NASA NTRS 2013 · Conference Paper
Optimal nonlinear estimation for aircraft flight control in wind shear
The most recent results in an ongoing research effort at Princeton in the area of flight dynamics in wind shear are described.
- NASA NTRS 2026 · Conference Paper
Computational Analysis of Steady State Aerodynamics of Transonic Truss-Braced Wing Configuration in Deep Stall
This study presents a computational investigation of steady state aerodynamics of the Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) configuration over a wide range …
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Automating Bird Diverter Installation through Multi-Aerial Robots and Signal Temporal Logic Specifications
This paper tackles the task assignment and trajectory generation problem for bird diverter installation using a fleet of multi-rotors.
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Variation of Critical Crystallization Pressure for the Formation of Square Ice in Graphene Nanocapillaries
Two-dimensional square ice in graphene nanocapillaries at room temperature is a fascinating phenomenon and has been confirmed experimentally.
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Polycrystallinity enhances stress build-up around ice
Damage caused by freezing wet, porous materials is a widespread problem, but is hard to predict or control. Here, we show that polycrystallinity makes a great difference to the stress build-up process…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗