ATL86FA074 · Cessna 303
Steel City Aviation Cessna 303 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Cleveland, OH to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL86FA074
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 303
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 303
- 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
- N4877V
- Operator
- Steel City Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland, OHTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- 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); Stall; 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 › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
- Pilot in command › VFR procedures, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
N4877V ARRIVED OVER CLARION COUNTY AIRPORT AT ABOUT 2100 HOURS, AND COMMENCED A VISUAL APPROACH FOR LANDING. MARGINAL VISUAL WEATHER CONDITIONS PREVAILED AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THE FLIGHT WAS OBSERVED BY ANOTHER PILOT WAITING ON THE GROUND FOR THE AIRCRAFT. THIS PILOT REPORTED THAT THE AIRCRAFT WAS SEEN THROUGH A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS AS IT TURNED LEFT, SOUTHWEST, AS IF TO ESTABLISH A LEFT DOWNWIND FOR RUNWAY 05. THE AIRCRAFT WAS LOCATED IN A WOODED AREA SOUTHWEST OF THE AIRPORT. AN EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE FAILED TO INDICATE ANY MALFUNCTION OR SYSTEM FAILURE. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE GROUND IN A NOSE LOW ATTITUDE AND THE WRECKAGE WAS CONFINED TO AN AREA INDICATIVE WITH A STALL TYPE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL86FA074
- Event ID
- 20001213X32799
- Case number
- ATL86FA074
- 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 1986-02-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 552505ab49c16c69fa575d845e03d8d790a0cd1e964da89ae5cf55d8680bd3cb; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:40:22.481Z.