CHI85FA014 · Cessna 172N
Emporia Aviation Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Paxton Airport (1C1) to Purdue University Airport (LAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85FA014
- 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 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
- N734ML
- Operator
- Emporia Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Paxton Airport (1C1), Paxton, ILTo Purdue University Airport (LAF), Lafayette, IN
- 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 › Lack of total experience
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT LANDED SHORT OF DESTINATION & REPORTED TO FSS THAT HE DID SO BECAUSE OF THUNDERSTORMS IN THE AREA. AFTER RECEIVING A WX BRIEFING THE NON-INST PLT CANCELLED HIS VFR FLT PLAN. ONE HOUR LATER THE PLT CALLED FSS & WAS RE-BRIEFED ON THE WX. THE WX AT HIS DESTINATION, 55 MI TO THE EAST, WAS VFR. THE PLT RE-FILED HIS FLT PLAN & DEPARTED INTO DARK NIGHT CONDITIONS. THE ACFT CRASHED 17.5 MI EAST OF HIS DEPARTURE POINT. LOCAL RESIDENTS REPORTED HEAVY RAIN IN THE AREA. THE 52 HR TOTAL TIME PLT CRASHED IN A DESCENDING RT TURN IN AN OPEN FIELD. THIS WAS THE PLT'S FIRST SOLO FLT IN THIS MAKE/MODEL ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85FA014
- Event ID
- 20001214X41294
- Case number
- CHI85FA014
- 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 1984-10-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ba85352ead6a17b984125148fb4a3f803b06c215f0ce68e1d6de5238fa9ea5d4; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:17:42.883Z.