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CHI85FAMS2 · Cessna 170B

25 Jul 1985 · CHICAGO(L.MICH), IL, United States

Cessna 170B · Accident: missing aircraft

From N54 · Langhorne, PA to Campbell Airport (C81)

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Event

NTSB case
CHI85FAMS2
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 170B

Aircraft type
Cessna 170
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
N3160B
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From N54 · Langhorne, PATo Campbell Airport (C81), Grayslake, IL
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
Unknown
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
Missing aircraft
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

  • Reason for occurrence undetermined

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

AT AN UNKNOWN TIME DURING THE NIGHT OF JULY 25/26 THE ACFT CRASHED INTO LAKE MICHIGAN. EXACT WX CONDITIONS ARE UNKNOWN. THE PASSENGER WAS RECOVERED FROM THE LAKE THE NEXT MORNING, ALONG WITH THE TWO CRUSHED FRONT SEATS AND TWO BUCKLED INTERIOR SIDE PANELS. THE PLT WAS RECOVERED FROM THE LAKE ELEVEN DAYS LATER. BOTH INDIVIDUALS SUCCUMBED TO MULTIPLE TRAUMATIC INJURIES. THE ACFT WAS NOT RECOVERED.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CHI85FAMS2
Event ID
20001214X37016
Case number
CHI85FAMS2
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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 6cbf23f45239ea4cdf333118ba7939c608a66b27407b3e65d0d360fb0854d0ff; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:55:29.339Z.