SEA85FA233 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport (ACV) to Southwest Oregon Regional Airport (OTH)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA85FA233
- 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
- Unknown
Cessna 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N4871G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport (ACV), Arcata, CATo Southwest Oregon Regional Airport (OTH), North Bend, OR
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Remote, OR, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING A WX BRIEFING, THE NON-INSTRUMENT PLT WAS ADZD THAT VFR FLT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED DUE TO LOW CLOUDS & ADVERSE WX ALONG THE ROUTE. HOWEVER, HE FILED A VFR FLT PLAN & DEPD ARCATA, CA AT 1240 PDT. AT 1339, IN THE VCNTY OF WILDERVILLE, OR, THE PLT GOT A WX UPDATE. HE WAS ADZD OF ISOLATED TSTMS & BROKEN TO SCATTERED CLOUDS TO 4000' WITH AN UPPER LAYER AT OR ABV 8000' & SCATTERED RAIN SHOWERS ALONG THE COAST WITH 1000' TO 2000' SCATTERED CLOUDS. MOUNTAIN TOPS WERE FORE- CAST TO BE OBSCURED. THE PLT'S LAST TRANSMISSION WAS AT 1356 PDT NEAR SEXTON MTN PASS, WHEN HE ASKED FOR THE MEDFORD ALTIMETER SETTING. THE ACFT DID NOT ARRIVE AT THE DESTN & WAS NOT FND DURING A SEARCH. IT WAS FND BY HIKERS ON 4/27/90, WHERE IT HAD COLLIDED WITH TREES ON STEEP MTN TERRAIN AT AN ELEV OF APRX 1800'. THE ACFT WAS BADLY DMGD BY IMPACT & FIRE. NO PREIMPACT MECH PROBLEM WAS EVIDENT. DURING IMPACT, THE PROP SEPD FROM THE CRANKSHAFT & BOTH BLADES HAD 'S TURN' DEFORMATION, LEADING EDGE DAMAGE & CORDWISE STRIATIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA85FA233
- Event ID
- 20001214X36607
- Case number
- SEA85FA233
- 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: 06d20d37f6018cad1b99e5d1e940b953cda035fafe4707bb8e49c567c7783e07; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:00:48.197Z.