Redtail Aviation Cessna 172R accident
Cessna 172R · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY) to Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08FA146
- 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
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 172R
- 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
- N389ES
- Operator
- Redtail Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY), Moab, UTTo Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY), Moab, UT
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- Defining eventThe 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The sightseeing flight departed with one passenger on a 2-hour tour, landed at an auxiliary airstrip an hour into the flight for a short break, then departed and continued the tour. After departing the auxiliary strip, another company tour pilot in the area reported conversing with the accident pilot. The company pilot subsequently asked the accident pilot a question, to which the accident pilot did not respond. There were no further communications with the accident pilot. A lone hiker in the area reported observing the airplane fly from her left to her right in a right bank and below the rim of a canyon before it went out of sight. The airplane reappeared about a minute later, this time flying from her right to her left and still below the rim of the canyon, but lower and in a steep bank before it again went out of sight. The hiker subsequently came upon the airplane wreckage and reported its position to local authorities. The airplane was located in a confined canyon about 38 miles southwest of the destination airport. Wreckage and impact signatures were consistent with the airplane having impacted terrain in a nose low, right wing down attitude before impacting two trees. Propeller signatures were consistent with rotational forces being applied to the crankshaft at the time of impact. There was no postcrash fire. All flight control components were accounted for at the accident site. Examination of the engine and airframe revealed no evidence of any preexisting mechanical anomalies. No conclusive evidence was found that could determine the cause of the accident.
*This report was modified on December 10, 2009.
Probable cause
The in-flight collision with mountainous terrain for undetermined reasons.
*This report was modified on December 10, 2009.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08FA146
- Event ID
- 20080604X00792
- Case number
- SEA08FA146
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: e3a504726c3f3a8524fac2bb2912e72a6eb3e09c5901fd25d546bd579a440c96; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:06:02.545Z.