ATL93LA154 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From 4A7 · Hampton, GA to Merritt Island Airport (COI)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL93LA154
- 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
- Visual 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
- N2074Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From 4A7 · Hampton, GATo Merritt Island Airport (COI), Cocoa Beach, FL
- 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 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Design stress limits of aircraft › Exceeded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE EN ROUTE AT 7500 FEET, THE PILOT MANEUVERED THE AIRPLANE TO AVOID FLYING INTO CLOUDS. AS HE MANEUVERED HE ENTERED AN AREA OF SEVERE TURBULENCE WHERE THE AIRPLANE LOST ABOUT 4000 FEET. THE PILOT RECALLED HEARING THE AIRFRAME POP AND FELT THE AIRFRAME TWIST. AFTER REGAINING CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE, THE PILOT NOTICED SOME DEFORMATION TO THE WING ASSEMBLY AND AIRFRAME. AFTER DETERMINING THE DAMAGE, THE PILOT ELECTED TO RETURN TO HIS DEPARTURE AIRPORT. UPON ARRIVING, THE PILOT DISCOVERED THAT THE LANDING GEAR WOULD NOT EXTEND. AN OFF RUNWAY EMERGENCY LANDING WAS MADE IN A GRASSY AREA PARALLEL TO THE SOUTHWEST RUNWAY. DURING A SUBSEQUENT CONVERSATION WITH THE PILOT, HE REPORTED THAT HE ENTERED THE AREA OF TURBULENCE ABOUT ONE MILE FROM A CLOUD BUILD UP; VISUAL WEATHER CONDITIONS PREVAILED BELOW THE BROKEN CLOUD LAYERS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE EVALUATION OF INFLIGHT WEATHER CONDITIONS WHICH RESULTED IN THE INFLIGHT ENCOUNTER WITH SEVERE TURBULENCE AND SUBSEQUENT OVERSTRESS OF THE AIRFRAME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL93LA154
- Event ID
- 20001211X13308
- Case number
- ATL93LA154
- 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: 0301f337da0c127000de2990b0c7eeda11f0043a26437d39756db752bbf22a6e; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:38:46.913Z.