MIA89FA219 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Hattiesburg Bobby L Chain Municipal Airport (HBG) to Gulfport Biloxi International Airport (GPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA89FA219
- 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
- 2 · 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 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
- N1976Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hattiesburg Bobby L Chain Municipal Airport (HBG), Hattiesburg, MSTo Gulfport Biloxi International Airport (GPT), Gulfport, MS
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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); Tree(s)
- 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 › Spiral, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLT WAS OPERATING IN AN AREA OF REDUCED VISIBILITY DUE TO HAZE, OVER AN UNPOPULATED AREA, AT NIGHT. REVIEW OF RADAR DATA INDICATES THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT HAD DIFFICULTY MAINTAINING A CONSTANT HEADING AND ALTITUDE DURING THE 15 MINUTE FLT. AS THE PLT RECEIVED THE CURRENT RUNWAY AND ALTIMETER SETTING AT THE DESTINATION AIRPORT, THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED TO MAKE A DESCENDING RIGHT TURN TO IMPACT WITH TREES AND THE TERRAIN. THE PLT HAD VOICED CONCERNS REGARDING THE HAZY CONDITIONS TO SEVERAL PEOPLE PRIOR TO THE FLT. THE PLT'S NIGHT CURRENCY AND TOTAL FLT EXPERIENCE COULD NOT BE DETERMINED FROM RECORDS. WEATHER INFORMATION LISTED ABOVE WAS AT A LOCATION 36 MILES FROM THE ACCIDENT SITE. PLTS FLYING IN THE VICINITY OF THE ACCIDENT SITE ESTIMATED VISIBILITY TO VARY BETWEEN 1 AND 2 MILES WITH FOG.
Probable cause
THE IN FLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL BY THE NON INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT AFTER ENCOUNTERING INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS RESULTING IN THE AIRPLANE SPIRALING INTO A WOODED AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA89FA219
- Event ID
- 20001213X29176
- Case number
- MIA89FA219
- 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 1989-08-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1a1bb398ec62750e78f5264bf530e0fb2db52dbdf60f26e643b7c884e2cfbffe; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:11:29.441Z.