NYC85FA201 · Cessna C-177B
Cessna C-177B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From N34 · PROSPECTVILLE, PA to 1N9 · Allentown, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC85FA201
- 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 C-177B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna C-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
- N34672
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From N34 · PROSPECTVILLE, PATo 1N9 · Allentown, PA
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES SAW THE ACFT DESCEND IN A NEAR NOSE DIVE ATTITUDE DURING A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM. THE PLT WAS NOT IN RADIO COMMUNICATION WITH GND FACILITIES. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MALFUNCTION. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF PLT IMPAIRMENT OR INCAPACITAITON. THERE WAS NO RECORD OF THE PLT RECEIVEING A WX BRIEFING. THE FLIGHT DIST. BETWEEN THE DESTINATION AND DEPARTURE ARPTS IS 32 MIS. THE ACCIDENT OCCURED 28 MIS FROM THE DEPARTURE ARPT. VFR WX CONDITIONS PREVAILED AT THE DEPARTURE ARPT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC85FA201
- Event ID
- 20001214X37247
- Case number
- NYC85FA201
- 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: 5cd2fd5c429f855adfd72fb730300aca004c87a008fbcc1447b8603c7ffe8a9d; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:54:30.484Z.