DEN83FA116 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD) to Central Wyoming Regional Airport (RIW)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83FA116
- 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 172P
- 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
- N54609
- Operator
- Roger Peters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UTTo Central Wyoming Regional Airport (RIW), Riverton, WY
- 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT NOON ON 5/21/83, THE PLT DEPARTED RIVERTON, WY ON A FLT TO OGDEN, UT TO TRANSPORT A MINISTER BACK TO RIVERTON FOR A WEDDING. AFTER ARRIVING AT OGDEN, HE OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING FOR THE RETURN FLT. HE WAS WARNED OF POSSIBLE THUNDERSTORMACTIVITY, TURBULENCE, LOW CEILINGS & STRONG, GUSTY WINDS. THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT WAS TOLD THAT IN THE VICINITY OF LANDER & ROCK SPRINGS, WY, THERE WERE RAIN SHOWERS, AND WITH THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY, VFR FLT MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE. THE PLTFILED A VFR FLT PLAN & STATED HE WOULD 'TAKE A LOOK-SEE.' AT 1729, HE TOOK OFF. THERE WAS NO EN ROUTE RADIO CONTACT, EXCEPT WHEN HE REQUESTED & WAS PROVIDED THE RIVERTON WX. AT APRX 1930, A RESIDENT NEAR THE CRASH SITE HEARD A SMALL ACFTFLYING LOW. SHE REPORTED THUNDER, LIGHTNING, THICK FOG & HEAVY SNOWFALL AT THAT TIME. WHEN THE ACFT DID NOT ARRIVE AT RIVERTON, A SEARCH WAS BEGUN. IT WAS FOUND NEAR A MOUNTAIN PASS WHERE IT CRASHED ON A RIDGE IN A 45 DEG NOSE DOWN, WINGSLEVEL ATTITUDE. THERE WAS VIRTUALLY NO MOVEMENT AFTER IMPACT. NO PREIMPACT/MECHANICAL FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS REPORTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83FA116
- Event ID
- 20001214X42940
- Case number
- DEN83FA116
- 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 1983-05-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d394f8d3899a8ca700eb66b97eef84f77da9105219f3e174e46bdcacad17bda5; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:46:36.643Z.