FTW94FA165 · Cessna 340
Cessna 340 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to Elko Regional Airport (EKO)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94FA165
- 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
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 340
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 340
- 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
- N5158J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NVTo Elko Regional Airport (EKO), NV
- 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
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT OBTAINED AN ABBREVIATED WEATHER BRIEFING FOR A FLIGHT FROM LAS VEGAS TO ELKO, NEVADA. HE WAS ADVISED OF MOUNTAIN OBSCURATION, ICING & TURBULENCE, & WAS TOLD THAT VFR FLIGHT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. A VFR FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED & ACTIVATED. THE AIRPLANE DEPARTED LAS VEGAS AT 1414 PDT. THE LAST RADIO COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE PLANE WAS AT 1545 PDT, ABOUT 14 MILES SOUTH OF ELKO. SEVERAL LOCAL RESIDENTS REPORTED A THUNDERSTORM WAS PASSING THROUGH THE AREA AT THAT TIME. THE AIRPLANE WAS LOCATED THE NEXT MORNING ABOUT 10 MILES SOUTHWEST OF ELKO AIRPORT NEAR GRINDSTONE PEAK AT ABOUT 6000' MSL. AN EXAM OF THE AIRFRAME & ENGINE AT THE ACCIDENT SITE DID NOT DISCLOSE ANY MECHANICAL PROBLEMS. DURING A TOXICOLOGY TEST, 4.8 MG/KG OF DIPHENHYDRAMINE (AN ANTIHISTAMINE) WAS DETECTED IN THE PILOT'S LIVER TISSUE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE (OR CLEARANCE) FROM MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, HIGH (MOUNTAINOUS/HILLY) TERRAIN, AND THE PILOT'S LACK OF INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94FA165
- Event ID
- 20001206X01272
- Case number
- FTW94FA165
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b6cc1e1ef74eeedbee4e3e5d45bd9d87c9fd3d394350c849db7d2ef41b4b8af6; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:09:35.014Z.