SEA04FA191 · Cessna 172D
Cessna 172D · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Mountain Home Municipal Airport (U76) to U76
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04FA191
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172D
- 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
- N2650U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mountain Home Municipal Airport (U76), Mountain Home, IDTo U76
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness observed the aircraft flying low to the ground, very aggressively and pulling up steeply back down into the canyon. The aircraft was found on the side of mountainous terrain. Impact signatures indicate that the aircraft collided with the rising terrain on its nose then slid uphill a short distance before coming to rest nose down up against a rock wall. The engine separated and was several hundred feet below the main wreckage in the valley. The propeller blades were severely damaged. On site inspection of the airframe and engine did not reveal evidence of a mechanical failure or malfunction. The owner of the aircraft reported that the pilot took the aircraft without authorization. Toxicological testing detected multiple medications, including an antipsychotic medication, two prescription "mood stabilizing" medications used in the treatment of bipolar disorder (manic depression), and a much higher than expected blood level of a prescription antidepressant.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from high terrain while maneuvering. High terrain was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04FA191
- Event ID
- 20040923X01484
- Case number
- SEA04FA191
- 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, coordinates. 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: a40906aa01c49c13996cded542f29d68d7c2e15aed14384ee9487e70be0bef8d; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:20:07.195Z.