DEN87FA050 · Cessna TR-182
Cessna TR-182 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO) to Jackson Hole Airport (JAC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN87FA050
- 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 TR-182
- Aircraft type
- Cessna TR-182
- 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
- N6089T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO), Missoula, MTTo Jackson Hole Airport (JAC), Jackson, WY
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Spiral, not corrected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED SEVERAL WEATHER BRIEFINGS PRIOR TO DEPARTURE. BRIEFINGS INCLUDED REPORTS OF ICING CONDITIONS, LOW CLOUDS AND TURBULENCE. VFR FLIGHT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. PLT DEPARTED VFR AND FILED IFR ENROUTE TO JACKSON. THE PILOT WAS ISSUED INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ILS APPROACH TO JACKSON BUT WAS UNABLE TO EXECUTE THEM. THE ATC CONTROLLER ATTEMPTED TO GUIDE N6089T TO JACKSON, THEN IDAHO FALLS, DUE TO SEVERE WEATHER THAT INCLUDED TURBULENCE AND ICING ON THE APPROACH TO JACKSON. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED APROX 30 MILES FROM JACKSON. PLT LOGBOOK REVEALED NO RECENT NIGHT FLIGHT TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN87FA050
- Event ID
- 20001213X30214
- Case number
- DEN87FA050
- 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 1987-02-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: db752bce0f2c498478005d3b028db0bfacad29391eb9fd2ec7461df81161802e; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:14:25.292Z.