FTW97LA138
1997-03-25 · TELLURIDE, Colorado, United States · Minor · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport TEX
N686JF has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (ZIPLINE INTERNATIONAL INC P2 ZIP), which was not involved in this event.
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's misjudged landing flare and his improper bounced landing recovery technique. A factor was the snow bank.
Factual narrative
On March 25, 1997, at 1030 mountain standard time, a Cessna, 172K, N686JF, was substantially damaged following a loss of control during landing at the Telluride Regional Airport, Telluride, Colorado. The private pilot, sole occupant in the airplane, received minor injuries. The airplane was owned and operated by Glenwood Aviation as a Title 14 CFR Part 91 personal flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the cross country flight which originated from Canyonlands Field Airport, Moab, Utah, approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes before the accident. A VFR flight plan was filed. The pilot stated that during landing the airplane "touched down very hard, bounced high and floated." When the airplane touched down the second time, it was "headed off [the] runway (15 degree angle +-)." He attempted to go around, but the airplane did not get airborne. The landing gear contacted a deep snow bank approximately 500 feet east and 100 feet south of where the airplane departed the runway, and it came to rest inverted. The airplane's wings, engine, propeller, empennage, and fuselage were all damaged. The pilot stated that during landing the airplane 'touched down very hard, bounced high and floated.' When the airplane touched down the second time, it was 'headed off [the] runway (15 degree angle +-).' He attempted to go around, but the airplane did not get airborne. The landing gear contacted a deep snow bank approximately 500 feet east and 100 feet south of where the airplane departed the runway, and it came to rest inverted. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1997_FTW97LA138.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control). All research papers
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER) A Scoping Review of Aviation Loss of Control Inflight Research
Loss of control – inflight (LOC-I) contributes to aircraft accidents at unacceptably high rates. Significant industry efforts and research have aimed to improve LOC-I prevention, detection, and recove…
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article Loss of Control In-Flight (LOC-I) — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary comprehensive knowledge-base entry on Loss of Control In-Flight — definitions, contributing factors, accident case studies (Air France 447, Colgan 3407), and prevention strategies.
- Semantic Scholar 2024 · Article (International Conference on Networking and Services) Risk Assessment of Loss of Control In-Flight Trajectories for Urban Air Mobility Safety
In Urban Air Mobility (UAM), maintaining a minimum separation between aircraft is a safety requirement, which becomes challenging amidst congested air traffic and off-nominal conditions, such as Loss …
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2022 · Accident report Loss of Control on Takeoff in Icing Conditions — Citation 560XL
Cessna Citation 560XL fatal takeoff icing accident, March 2018. Investigation of a Citation 560XL loss-of-control takeoff accident in icing conditions.
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aviation) ANALYSIS OF GENERAL AVIATION FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS INVOLVING INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL USING A STATE-BASED APPROACH
Inflight loss of control (LOC-I) is a significant cause of General Aviation (GA) fixed-wing aircraft accidents. The United States National Transportation Safety Board’s database provides a rich source…
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Presentation Use of Design of Experiments in Determining Neural Network Architectures for Loss of Control Detection
Abstract—We describe empirical methods for selecting a neural network architecture to implement belief state inference on generic commercial transport aircraft.