FTW94LA013 · Cessna 172K
Cessna 172K · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Beaumont Municipal Airport (BMT) to Mesquite Metro Airport (HQZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94LA013
- 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 172K
- 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
- N7825T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Beaumont Municipal Airport (BMT), Beaumont, TXTo Mesquite Metro Airport (HQZ), Mesquite, TX
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Emergency procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS ON TOP OF A CLOUD LAYER WHEN HE STARTED EXPERIENCING IRREGULARITIES WITH THE AVIONICS EQUIPMENT, ACCOMPANIED WITH THE SMELL OF BURNING ELECTRICAL INSULATION. SUSPECTING A FIRE, HE STARTED LOOKING FOR A BREAK IN THE CLOUD LAYER TO MAKE A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING. FINDING A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS, HE DESCENDED BELOW THE CLOUDS AND LANDED IN AN OPEN FIELD ADJACENT TO A HIGHWAY. HE THEN INTENTIONALLY GROUND LOOPED THE AIRPLANE INTO BUSHES ON THE SIDE OF THE FIELD TO AVOID GOING THROUGH A FENCE AND ONTO THE HIGHWAY. THE RIGHT WING SUSTAINED STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM FAILED TO DISCLOSE ANY ANOMALIES OR EVIDENCE OF ELECTRICAL FIRE. THE PILOT STATED HE DID NOT MAKE ANY EFFORT TO TROUBLESHOOT OR ISOLATE THE IRREGULARITIES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW PROPER EMERGENCY PROCEDURES TO TROUBLESHOOT THE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM. A FACTOR WAS AN ELECTRICAL SYSTEM IRREGULARITY OF AN UNDETERMINED NATURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94LA013
- Event ID
- 20001211X13566
- Case number
- FTW94LA013
- 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: 4461deaa16db6d7ed266d899da5e96deb008095607bc364733f1c5b51057df08; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:31:49.596Z.