LAX94FA004 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO) to O69
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA004
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N45022
- Operator
- Dean Sheppard
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NVTo O69
- 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
- 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 terrain/water
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE WAS ON A CROSS-COUNTY FLIGHT ON A BRIGHT MOONLIT NIGHT FROM RENO, NV, TO PETALUMA, CA. DURING ARRIVAL, THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH RISING TERRAIN ABOUT 4 MILES SOUTHEAST OF THE AIRPORT AT ABOUT 400' MSL. ABOUT 25 MILES NORTH- WEST AT SONOMA COUNTY AIRPORT, THE 2340 PDT WEATHER WAS IN PART: 400' OVERCAST, 10 MILES VISIBILITY, WIND FROM 140 DEG AT 5 KTS. A COMMERCIAL PILOT REPORTED THAT EARLIER THAT EVENING, CLOUD BASES AT PETALUMA WERE BETWEEN 300' & 400' AGL. ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING, CLOUD BASES WERE STILL PRESENT AT ABOUT 400' AGL. THE AIRPLANE WAS EQUIPPED WITH DUAL VOR'S & LORAN & THERE WAS A PORTABLE GPS RECEIVER ABOARD. THE AIRPORT HAD A VOR (RWY 29) APPROACH. MINIMUM DESCENT ALTITUDE FOR THAT APPROACH WAS 1080' MSL, BUT THE FLIGHT HAD NO FLIGHT PLAN OR ATC CLEARANCE. THE OWNER/PILOT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED, THOUGH ANOTHER PILOT, WHO WAS ABOARD, HAD A PRIVATE PILOT CERTIFICATE WITH AN INSTRUMENT RATING. INVESTIGATION DID NOT DETERMINE WHICH PILOT WAS FLYING THE AIRPLANE. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OF THE AIRPLANE WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT(S) INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND FAILURE TO MAINTAIN A PROPER ALTITUDE AND/OR CLEARANCE FROM TERRAIN, WHILE APPROACHING THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE LOW CEILING AND TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA004
- Event ID
- 20001211X13577
- Case number
- LAX94FA004
- 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 1993-10-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 20a90fd83047259f3124546d3e232c548a0f987ee8b818d434b4eb7a78b078c8; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:21:52.640Z.