SEA93FA187 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Colorado Plains Regional Airport (AKO) to Central Wyoming Regional Airport (RIW)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93FA187
- 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
- 3 · 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 180
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N3120C
- Operator
- Arnold, Edward F. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Colorado Plains Regional Airport (AKO), Akron, COTo Central Wyoming Regional Airport (RIW), Riverton, WY
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE CESSNA 180 EXPERIENCED AN IN FLIGHT BREAK-UP. WRECKAGE WAS SCATTERED OVER ROLLING TERRAIN FOR ABOUT ONE MILE. OUTBOARD PIECES OF THE LEFT WING WERE THE FIRST BITS OF WRECKAGE THAT WERE FOUND ALONG THE PATH. ALSO, THE RIGHT HORIZONTAL STABILIZER AND THE OUTBOARD SECTION OF THE RIGHT WING HAD FAILED. AFTER IMPACT, THE FUSELAGE WAS CONSUMED BY FIRE. THE PILOT OF A CESSNA 195 (IN THE SAME FLIGHT) REPORTED THAT AS THEY WERE CLIMBING TO REMAIN ABOVE CLOUDS, HE ENCOUNTERED A STRONG DOWNDRAFT. HE SAID THE CESSNA 195 THEN ENTERED THE CLOUDS, AS WELL AS MODERATE TO SEVERE TURBULENCE AND UP/DOWNDRAFTS, WHICH RESULTED IN EXCEEDING THE UP AND DOWN LIMITS OF THE VERTICAL SPEED INDICATOR. HE SAID HE RECOVERED BELOW THE CLOUDS AND LOST CONTACT WITH THE CESSNA 180. AFTER LANDING AT THE DESTINATION, THE CESSNA 195 PILOT LEARNED THAT THE CESSNA 180 HAD CRASHED IN THAT SAME AREA.
Probable cause
IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISON BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN EXCEEDING THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRCRAFT AFTER ENCOUNTERING ADVERSE WEATHER. THE WEATHER CONDITIONS WERE RELATED FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93FA187
- Event ID
- 20001211X13468
- Case number
- SEA93FA187
- 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: 3201fcc0afea83ef3717ef6705f8cd21af947224b8c60b6b379d600f8ec1778a; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:24:17.196Z.