SEA94LA133 · Cessna 172M
ST. Maries Cap Aero Club Cessna 172M · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO) to Jack A Buell Airport (S72)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94LA133
- 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
- 0 · 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 172M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N30608
- Operator
- ST. Maries Cap Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO), Missoula, MTTo Jack A Buell Airport (S72), ST. MARIES, ID
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED LEAVING ON A RETURN TRIP TO HIS HOME BASE IN ST. MARIES, IDAHO. HE TRIED TO FOLLOW A HIGHWAY THROUGH A VALLEY TO AVOID ADVERSE WEATHER AND MOUNTAIN OBSCURATION. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT WHEN HE TURNED A CORNER, HE SAW THE CEILING HAD LOWERED TO A POINT WHERE HE COULD NO LONGER CONTINUE, AND TRIED TO EXECUTE A 180 DEGREE TURN BACK TO THE EAST. IN DOING SO, HE ENTERED THE CLOUD AND COLLIDED WITH THE TERRAIN.
Probable cause
POOR IN-FLIGHT PLANNING. FACTORS INCLUDE CLOUDY WEATHER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94LA133
- Event ID
- 20001206X01406
- Case number
- SEA94LA133
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-05-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 12a5dac8e87a19a741d42601d3759f9e5c21bca29e57ff1e453db46214ff9b92; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:53:54.923Z.