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SEA93FA179 · Cessna 172N

21 Aug 1993 · LAKE FORK, ID, United States

T Craft Aero Club Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route

From Cascade Airport (U70) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
SEA93FA179
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
Visual 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
N75644
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Cascade Airport (U70), Cascade, IDTo 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
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
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 › Clearance, not maintained
  • Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
  • Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
  • Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
  • Pilot in command › Judgment, poor

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lake Fork, ID, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

AFTER LANDING, THE AIRCRAFT WAS REFUELED. WHEN IT WAS IDENTIFIED AS BEING STOLEN, THE PILOT HURRIEDLY RETURNED TO THE PLANE, STARTED THE ENGINE, TAXIED TO THE RUNWAY, & MADE AN INTERSECTION TAKEOFF. AFTER TAKEOFF, THE AIRCRAFT WAS SEEN CLIMBING NORTH TOWARD MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. SUBSEQUENTLY, IT COLLIDED WITH A STEEP/WOODED SLOPE IN THE MOUNTAINS. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS FOUND THAT WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN THE ACCIDENT. LOCAL PILOTS REPORTED THAT THE MOUNTAIN TOPS WERE OBSCURED BY WEATHER AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. TOXICOLOGY TESTS OF THE PILOT SHOWED ALCOHOL LEVELS OF 68 MG/DL (0.068%) IN HIS BLOOD, 89 MG/DL (0.089%) IN INVITREOUS FLUID, & 115 MG/DL (0.115%) IN HIS URINE, AND 0.147 UG/ML OF ALPRAZOLAM IN HIS BLOOD. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT THE PILOT'S SEAT BELT WAS NOT USED; HIS BODY WAS EJECTED FROM THE AIRPLANE DURING IMPACT.

Probable cause

POOR JUDGMENT OF THE PILOT BY FLYING WHILE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL AND A DRUG, HIS CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO AN AREA OF ADVERSE WEATHER, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE CLEARANCE (OR ALTITUDE) FROM MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE HIGH (MOUNTAINOUS) TERRAIN, AND THE LOW CLOUDS/CEILING.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record SEA93FA179
Event ID
20001211X13257
Case number
SEA93FA179
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: ae872f4ed93e4326841fc98a9af9b014de7ddbf5651ec7432a89961cd183c300; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:25:06.959Z.