CHI93FA050 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Belleville Municipal Airport (RPB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI93FA050
- 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
- 1 · 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 177B
- 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
- N11889
- Operator
- Dart, John C. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Belleville Municipal Airport (RPB), Belleville, KSTo not recorded
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine accessories, vacuum pump › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
EN ROUTE TO HIS DESTINATION, DURING LEVEL FLIGHT AT 9,000 FT, THE PILOT ADVISED ATC THAT HIS GYRO WAS INOPERATIVE. WHEN ASKED IF HE WOULD NEED ANY SPECIAL ASSISTANCE AT HIS DESTINATION, HE DECLINED. DURING THE ILS APPROACH HE WAS ISSUED A NEW VISIBILITY OF 1/4 MILE. HE SUBSEQUENTLY EXECUTED A MISSED APPROACH, AND WAS INSTRUCTED TO CLIMB AND MAINTAIN 2,500 FT FOR NO-GYRO VECTORS. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED RISING TERRAIN 1/4 MILE FROM THE DEPARTURE END OF THE ILS RUNWAY. EXAM OF THE VACUUM PUMP REVEALED THAT THE ROTOR WAS BROKEN; ONE VANE WAS BROKEN, AND TWO PIECES WERE WEDGED IN ONE VANE SLOT. THE ROTOR ASSEMBLY WOULD NOT ROTATE. THE PILOT'S TOXICOLOGICAL RESULTS SHOWED 33.500 UG/ML OF ACETAMINOPHEN IN THE URINE, ALONG WITH DIPHENHYDRAMINE. THIS COMBINATION IS FOUND IN COMMON NON-PRESCRIPTION DRUGS SUCH AS 'BUFFRIN AF NITE TIME' AND 'EXCEDRIN P.M.'
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN A POSITIVE RATE OF CLIMB DURING A MISSED APPROACH. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: INOPERATIVE GYRO INSTRUMENTS DUE TO A BROKEN VACUUM PUMP, THE DARK NIGHT, ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND RISING TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI93FA050
- Event ID
- 20001211X16130
- Case number
- CHI93FA050
- 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: 870bdc86f4861f19cfba32b8b97f35d1e3a94e71ce906f0fb07edc6d01f88b0f; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:46:26.998Z.