DEN01FA028 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Casper-Natrona County International Airport (CPR) to Rapid City Regional Airport (RAP)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN01FA028
- 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 172
- 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
- N4223F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Casper-Natrona County International Airport (CPR), Casper, WYTo Rapid City Regional Airport (RAP), Rapid City, SD
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument rated private pilot did not obtain a weather briefing for the dark night cross-country flight through an area where low ceilings and visibilities were becoming widespread. Air route traffic control center (ARTCC) radar data showed the airplane climbing to 8,000 feet msl toward its destination. Approximately 35 minutes after takeoff, the radar data showed the airplane began to maneuver and descend to 5,900 feet. Approximately 60 minutes after takeoff, the airplane maneuvered to within 3-4 miles of an airport. The last two radar hits showed the airplane making a right turn to the north. The last radar hit was 75 minutes after takeoff, at an altitude of 5,700 feet msl (about 700 feet agl). The airplane impacted rolling terrain at an elevation of 5,100 feet msl about 8.43 nautical miles east-northeast of the airport, which it had been maneuvering near. The emergency locator transmitter (ELT) activated and the local authorities were notified. The airplane wreckage was located the following morning. According to the local sheriff, the weather in the area was blizzard conditions, making it hard even for surface vehicles to maneuver. The wind was gusting to 65 mph, visibility was down to about 1,000 feet, and the ceiling was "very low." No anomalies were found with the airframe or engine that would have prevented normal operation. The pilot's toxicological tests were positive for tetrahydrocannabinol carboxylic acid (marihuana).
Probable cause
the pilot's VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions, and his subsequent failure to maintain terrain clearance, which resulted in an in-flight collision with terrain. Contributing factors were the pilot's failure to obtain a weather briefing, low ceilings, snow, high winds, and dark night light conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN01FA028
- Event ID
- 20010110X00073
- Case number
- DEN01FA028
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-12-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 113e33358b62c60a6b090010effa75ccda7a54f98fda0d03ad276f5d8d06c98b; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:43:27.765Z.