CHI83FA050 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From FDM · Medina, OH to FDM · Medina, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI83FA050
- 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 177
- 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
- N29528
- Operator
- Leonard W. Johnson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FDM · Medina, OHTo FDM · Medina, OH
- 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
- Approach
- 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); Tree(s)
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT ABOUT 1430 EST, THE PILOT TOOK OFF FROM FREEDOM FIELD, MEDINA, OH IN VFR CONDITIONS. WHEN HE RETURNED ABOUT 3 HRS LATER AT DUSK, THE WEATHER WAS ESTIMATED TO BE: 400 FT OVERCAST, 3/4 MI VISIBILITY WITH FOG. A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR HEARD THE PLANE FLY OVER THE AIRPORT JUST PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. HE HEARD A CONTINUOUS SOUND FROM THE ENGINE UNTIL THE PLANE CRASHED ABOUT 3/4 MI EAST OF THE AIRPORT IN A WOODED AREA. INITIAL IMPACT OCCURRED WITH TREES AT ABOUT 60 FT AGL WHILE ON A HEADING OF APRX 220 DEG. THE AIRCRAFT REMAINED AIRBORNE FOR ABOUT ANOTHER 100 FT WHERE IT STRUCK ANOTHER TREE AND THE RIGHT WING SEPARATED. THE MAIN WRECKAGE CAME TO REST 458 FT FROM THE INITIAL IMPACT POINT. NO EVIDENCE WAS FOUND OF A WEATHER BRIEFING PRIOR TO THE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI83FA050
- Event ID
- 20020917X04433
- Case number
- CHI83FA050
- 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: e48b398d6b382cdf167e91869de7e7f3f14aec230b5fc263b225c59b0c35324a; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:26:20.733Z.