CHI90LA279 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Jackson County Airport/Reynolds Field (JXN) to I14 · Indianapolis, IN
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90LA279
- 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 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
- N35014
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson County Airport/Reynolds Field (JXN), Jackson, MITo I14 · Indianapolis, IN
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A SECOND PILOT WHO WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED WAS FLYING UNDER THE HOOD IN VMC CONDITIONS AT 6000 FEET ON A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT. THE INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT-IN-COMMAND TOLD HIM TO TURN RIGHT TO AVOID A THUNDERSTORM. THE SECOND PILOT BECAME DISORIENTED IN THE TURN, AND ENTERED A SPIRALLING DESCENT INTO IMC CONDITIONS. THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND TOOK CONTROL AND OVERSTRESSED THE AIRCRAFT DURING THE RECOVERY. THE AIRCRAFT WAS FLOWN TO THE INTENDED DESTINATION AND LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT. WING DEFORMATION AND BENT SPAR WAS DISCOVERED ON PREFLIGHT INSPECTION BEFORE THE NEXT FLIGHT.
Probable cause
EXCEEDING THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRCRAFT WHILE RECOVERING FROM A LOSS OF CONTROL IN FLIGHT DUE TO SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE DELAYED REMEDIAL ACTION AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF AN INEXPERIENCED PILOT BY THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND, AND LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN TYPE OF OPERATION BY THE SECOND PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90LA279
- Event ID
- 20001212X24237
- Case number
- CHI90LA279
- 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: 41d155be87a454e1d136eb38b340c5f0e8f37618d1967a83d83a14dd7eca03a4; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:19:30.877Z.