MIA99FA150 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) to Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99FA150
- 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 172
- 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
- N30DS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), Jacksonville, FLTo Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX), Knoxville, TN
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot made radio contact with approach control, level at 8,500 feet, and was advised that the tops of the clouds were at 7,000 feet msl, and that the base of the clouds in the area were at 3,400 feet msl. The pilot said, '...I can see the...seven thousand footers I've got uh ground contact.' The controller said, '...roger are you familiar with the mountainous terrain.' The pilot answered, 'yes sir.' About 8 minutes after initial contact, radio and radar contact were simultaneously lost. The airplane impacted in mountainous rising terrain, in a heavily wooded area. Due to bad weather, extremely rough terrain, and the remoteness of the crash site, ground searchers could not reach the wreckage for a couple of days. The following exchange occurred between two ATC controllers referance weather conditions at Knoxville and N30DS's position, '...[he is] tryin to dodge clouds and stuff...I don't see any breaks...well he says he sees the ground...well good luck (unintelligible) he better descend if he can because there's no breaks out this way but oh well that's for him to decide....' The airframe, engine, and propeller were examined and no discrepancies were found. Control cable continuity was confirmed to all the flight controls
Probable cause
the pilot continued visual flight into know weather conditions which resulted in reduced visibility, and the subsequent in-flight collision with rising terrain. Factors in this accidents were clouds and low ceiling in the accident area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99FA150
- Event ID
- 20001212X18833
- Case number
- MIA99FA150
- 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: 2df41be0b4de14b333d9647a4d533968fc12a4d5c987a421c7a1ab7c098c71c8; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:07:45.959Z.