MKC87FA027 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Atwood-Rawlins City-County Airport (ADT) to Topeka Regional Airport (FOE)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC87FA027
- 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 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
- N7692U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Atwood-Rawlins City-County Airport (ADT), Atwood, KSTo Topeka Regional Airport (FOE), Topeka, KS
- 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 · climb to 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT FILED AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN AFTER BEING BRIEFED. THERE WAS FREEZING DRIZZLE TO THE WEST THAT WAS MOVING TOWARD THE DEPARTURE AREA. THE AIRPLANE TOOK OFF INTO A LOW CEILING WITH NEAR FREEZING TEMPERATURE. PILOT ATTEMPTED TO CLIMB TO 9000 MSL BUT ENCOUNTERED STRUCTURAL ICING CONDITIONS THAT HE CALLED GREATER THAN MODERATE. AT FIRST, AIRPLANE COULD NOT CLIMB, THEN COULD NOT MAINTAIN ALTITUDE. ATC PROVIDED ASSISTANCE OF STEERING TOWARD NEAREST AIRPORT. AIRPLANE WAS FORCED DOWN IN A FARMYARD, 5 MILES SOUTH OF AIRPORT. ICE TWO INCHES THICK WAS FOUND ON AND AROUND AIRPLANE WRECKAGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC87FA027
- Event ID
- 20001213X35240
- Case number
- MKC87FA027
- 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: c2af4f04dcd7cea50d1c91c985c5e6b2d9d56309611d8ea33635f4e654f6811d; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:18:44.792Z.