FTW98FA384 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From U42 · West Jordan, UT to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98FA384
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172
- 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
- N8232B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From U42 · West Jordan, UTTo not recorded
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Wire, static
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness riding on his dirt motorcycle parallel to the powerlines saw two bright flashes and heard a loud bang from behind. The airplane crashed 50 to 75 feet in front of him. Other witnesses reported observing a flash, hearing a loud noise, and observing the airplane descending vertically towards the ground. The airplane had struck the top static line on a transmission tower, severing the right wing and empennage. The transmission tower is about 100 feet agl. Airport traffic pattern altitude is 800 feet agl. The accident occurred in visual meteorological conditions, during the hours of darkness, about 2 miles west of the airport. The transmission lines run parallel to the runway.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain proper airport traffic pattern altitude. Factors were night lighting conditions and the unseen static line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98FA384
- Event ID
- 20001211X11044
- Case number
- FTW98FA384
- 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 1998-09-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 54ad88982ad5bc6743995b52c090795acf2cbc90d5c0f5ca98f594237d2a32b1; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:26:51.105Z.