FTW95FA150 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Dalhart Municipal Airport (DHT) to 4AC · Albuquerque, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95FA150
- 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
- 1 · 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 177RG
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N35917
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dalhart Municipal Airport (DHT)To 4AC · Albuquerque, NM
- 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 › Spatial disorientation
- 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 PRIVATE PILOT WAS EN ROUTE FROM NORTH CAROLINA TO NEW MEXICO WHEN HE STOPPED AT DALHART ON 03/29/95 AND DECIDED TO REMAIN OVERNIGHT AFTER CONVERSING WITH OTHER PILOTS WHO WERE DELAYING THEIR DEPARTURES DUE TO REPORTED ICING CONDITIONS. HE TOLD A WITNESS THAT HE WAS 'WORRIED ABOUT HIS JOB' AND WAS EXPECTED TO REPORT FOR WORK AT MIDNIGHT THAT EVENING. INSTRUMENT WEATHER CONDITIONS PREVAILED THE NEXT MORNING UNTIL ABOUT 1000 WHEN THE VISIBILITY INCREASED TO 15 MILES. THE PILOT DID NOT OBTAIN A WEATHER BRIEFING PRIOR TO DEPARTING ABOUT 1015, ALTHOUGH ANOTHER PILOT ADVISED HIM THAT HE HAD JUST DRIVEN THROUGH SNOW ON HIS WAY INTO TOWN FROM THE WEST. APPROXIMATELY ONE HOUR AFTER TAKEOFF, THE PILOT CALLED THE DALHART UNICOM AND REPORTED THAT HE WAS CIRCLING THE VOR BUT COULD NOT FIND THE AIRPORT. AFTER RECEIVING DIRECTIONS FROM THE VOR TO THE AIRPORT, THE PILOT REPORTED HE WAS HEADED FOR THE AIRPORT. A WITNESS NEAR THE AIRPORT OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE 'APPEAR OUT OF THE SNOWSTORM', MANEUVER BRIEFLY, THEN ENTER 'A SHARP LEFT BANK WITH AN EXTREME NOSE DOWN ANGLE', IMPACT THE GROUND AND 'BURST INTO FLAMES.'
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC CONDITIONS AND THE ENSUING SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. FACTORS WERE THE PILOT'S SELF-INDUCED PRESSURE TO REACH HIS DESTINATION, HIS FAILURE TO OBTAIN A WEATHER BRIEFING FOR THE FLIGHT, AND THE WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95FA150
- Event ID
- 20001207X03111
- Case number
- FTW95FA150
- 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: 2cb93beb585a87008e17fbe1334d3163ded28250f96ad2cdc0855f85e6e08f11; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:50:24.656Z.