Colorado Aviation Accidents & Incidents

On October 24, 2008, at 1112 mountain daylight time, a Cessna 172P, N64055, registered to 3 Wire Air Services, LLC, Westminster, Colorado, and operated by Western Air Flight Academy, Broomfield, Colorado, was destroyed when it struck terrain after the pilot attempted to make a go-around at the Rocky Mountain Regional Airport (BJC), Broomfield, Colorado. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The personal flight was being conducted under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91 without a flight plan. The pilot was seriously injured. The local flight originated at BJC approximately 1100.

According to the pilot's accident report, she departed BJC and flew to Longmont, Colorado (LMO). She made three touch-and-go landings in "choppy" weather, then returned to BJC. Tower cleared her to land on runway 29R, and she configured the airplane for landing. She thought the wind was "well within [her] ability level." On base leg, tower changed the landing runway to 29L. She thought the wind was "acceptable...even with the crosswind component," and she did not request a crosswind runway. She "crabbed" the airplane into the gusty crosswind and the airplane was blown to the left of, "almost perpendicular to," the runway. As the airplane entered ground effect, it was over the grass and the pilot added power "in an attempt to get enough altitude and speed to bring the airplane back over the runway." When she realized this was futile, she added full power in a go-around attempt. She wrote, "I remember trying to force the nose down and I couldn't get it down quickly enough. I got higher off the ground...I think parallel to the runway, then [the air]plane pulled to the left even with holding right rudder, tipped over left and seemed to bounce off the ground and then hit the ground facing south."

The wind at BJC, recorded at 1114, was from 300 degrees at 12 knots. No gusts were reported. The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane, resulting in an inadvertent stall, during a landing attempt. Contributing to the accident was the gusty crosswinds.