FTW83LA215 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From San Angelo Regional Mathis Field (SJT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW83LA215
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 177B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 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
- N34581
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Angelo Regional Mathis Field (SJT), San Angelo, TXTo not recorded
- 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 · descent
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A WX BRIEFING, THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT WAS TOLD TO EXPECT NO SIGNIFICANT EN ROUTE WX, BUT WAS ADVISED OF LOWER CEILINGS ALONG THE COASTLINE, LATER THAT NIGHT. THERE WERE NO RECORDS OF EN ROUTE WX BRIEFINGS. WHEN THE ACFT WAS ABOUT 40 MI NORTHWEST OF THE DESTINATION, THE PLT CONTACTED CORPUS CHRISTI APCH CONTROL & WAS ADVISED OF IFR WX IN THE VICINITY. HE REQUESTED & WAS PROVIDED RADAR VECTORS TO HIS DESTINATION, BUT WAS UNSUCCESSFUL IN FINDING THE ARPT. THE PLT THEN REPORTED THAT HE WAS 'UNABLE TO GET DOWN' & REQUESTED VECTORS TO CORPUS CHRISTI. HE WAS AGAIN ADVISED OF IFR CONDITIONS AT CORPUS CHRISTI. WHEN ASKED IF HE COULD FLY AN IFR APCH, HE GAVE A NEGATIVE REPLY. HE ALSO REPORTED THAT HE WAS IN IFR CONDITIONS & HAD INSUFFICIENT FUEL TO FLY TO SAN ANTONIO. SUBSEQUENTLY, RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST APRX 2 MI SOUTHEAST OF THE ARPT. LATER, BOTH OCCUPANTS & ACFT DEBRIS WERE FOUND WHERE THE HAD WASHED ON OR NEAR THE SHORE FORM THE GULF OF MEXICO.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW83LA215
- Event ID
- 20001214X42980
- Case number
- FTW83LA215
- 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 1983-05-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 18cb05af40351323fd57ce66e0b2c60f9a18f3390a7e3be8429c468f6912f7e7; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:51:54.896Z.