WPR12CA025 · Cessna 172K K
North Star Aviation Cessna 172K K · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO) to 6S5 · Hamilton, MT
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12CA025
- 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
- 0 · 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 172K K
- 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
- N7276G
- Operator
- North Star Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO), Missoula, MTTo 6S5 · Hamilton, MT
- 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 · 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
- 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
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After a series of takeoffs and landings at several nearby airports, the pilot was returning to his home airport and descended to a low level to follow a river. The pilot reported that the conditions were turbulent for most of the day but that, during that low-altitude leg, the airplane seemed to perform abnormally. While still airborne, a passenger observed that the brake line that was attached to the right main landing gear strut was severed. As a result, the pilot conducted a precautionary landing at a nearby airport. The pilot and passengers observed multiple damage sites on the airplane but, since no one was present at that airport, they reboarded and departed for the home airport where they landed uneventfully.
A postaccident investigation revealed that the airplane struck and severed one of several electrical power lines that spanned the river. The wire height at mid river was about 30 to 40 feet above the water. The propeller, cowling, exhaust stack, right wing (multiple places), right wing strut, right main gear brake line, right landing gear wheel fairing, right fuselage, and vertical stabilizer were damaged by the wire strike, and the rear window was punctured. The pilot stated that he did not see any wires and that he was not aware of the wire strike until he examined the airplane after the precautionary landing. Neither the pilot nor the passengers incurred any injuries.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a power line during a low-level flight along a river. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to fly at a low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12CA025
- Event ID
- 20111101X01353
- Case number
- WPR12CA025
- 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: 256521e00fcc34e3e428b34aafbd9a1f95423ace6fab454a3de2be33d33c5479; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:54:09.128Z.