SEA93LA012 · Cessna 172P
Felts Field Aviation Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From S22 · Hermiston, OR to Felts Field (SFF)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93LA012
- 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 172P
- 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
- N62731
- Operator
- Felts Field Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S22 · Hermiston, ORTo Felts Field (SFF), Spokane, WA
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING FOR A VFR FLIGHT AND THEN DEPARTED FOR HIS DESTINATION. APPROXIMATELY MID FLIGHT HE ENCOUNTERED FOG, LOW CEILINGS, CLOUDS, AND GENERALLY DETERIORATING WEATHER CONDITIONS AND ATTEMPTED TO DIVERT TO AN ALTERNATE AIRPORT. AS THE WEATHER CONTINUED TO DETERIORATE, AND DUSK LIGHT CONDITIONS BEGAN TO PERSIST, THE PILOT CHOSE TO EXECUTE A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING IN A WHEAT FIELD. DURING THE LANDING ROLLOUT THE AIRCRAFT'S NOSE AND RIGHT WHEELS ENCOUNTERED RUTS AND THE AIRCRAFT MOMENTARILY IMPACTED ITS NOSE AND RIGHT WINGTIP BEFORE COMING TO REST.
Probable cause
THE AIRCRAFT ENCOUNTERED ROUGH TERRAIN DURING THE LANDING ROLL AFTER THE PILOT ELECTED TO PERFORM A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING IN AN OPEN FIELD, DUE TO DETERIORATING WEATHER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93LA012
- Event ID
- 20001211X15968
- Case number
- SEA93LA012
- 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 1992-10-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b2e38386569f0aee88860e80a5d8d68e0b2232a980722d2a57df2840f53168f1; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:30:45.074Z.