SEA97LA059 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport (LMT) to Columbia Gorge Regional Airport (DLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA059
- 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 172N
- 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
- N5618J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport (LMT), Klamath Falls, ORTo Columbia Gorge Regional Airport (DLS), THE DALLLES, OR
- 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
- 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 collision with object
- 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); Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been en route in visual meteorological conditions, but came to a point where it appeared low-level clouds stretched many miles ahead toward his destination. He therefore elected to attempt to fly underneath the overcast through the mountainous/hilly terrain that was between his location and his destination. While flying through a narrow canyon under the lowering ceiling, he encountered an area of fog and low clouds, and therefore elected to reverse course. During the reversal, the pilot inadvertently entered instrument meteorological conditions, and immediately initiated a climb. While attempting to climb out of the conditions, he saw an area of terrain that he thought he should try to crash land on. As he maneuvered to execute the crash landing, the aircraft impacted a tree, and the left wing separated from the fuselage.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). Factors include the pilot's improper decision to fly under a low ceiling while in mountainous/hilly terrain, and his encounter with fog and low clouds while maneuvering in a narrow canyon.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA059
- Event ID
- 20001208X07458
- Case number
- SEA97LA059
- 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 1997-02-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6f7c672037cd153d5c49cafcf3fff6df0bf777de326108193afe104de76109d6; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:13:58.785Z.