WPR14FA362 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From Great Falls International Airport (GTF) to White Sulphur Springs Airport (7S6)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA362
- 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 177B
- 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
- N34880
- Operator
- Wilsey Christopher
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Great Falls International Airport (GTF), Great Falls, MTTo White Sulphur Springs Airport (7S6), White Sulphur Springs, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1974)
- 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While flying in mountainous terrain to show one of the passengers the area, the pilot entered a canyon that started to narrow as the canyon's walls rose so the pilot initiated a climb. The airplane then experienced a downdraft followed by a second downdraft, and the pilot found a low spot in the trees and attempted a climbing turn; however, the airplane would not climb and started brushing the trees. The airplane descended into the ground, and a postimpact fire ensued. The pilot reported no anomalies with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation, and postaccident examination revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Weather charts revealed gusty wind conditions with vertical air mixing and an increased potential for turbulence in the accident area. Weather model soundings and simulations revealed that the layer from the surface through 10,000 feet mean sea level was unstable, indicating that the airplane likely encountered wind magnitudes as high as 30 knots, gusty winds, and updrafts and downdrafts in the mountainous terrain. Further, the airplane likely experienced turbulence and encountered downdrafts with a tailwind component at a velocity between 100 and 200 ft per minute.
Calculation of the airplane's weight and balance revealed that throughout the flight, the airplane was operating about 114 pounds over maximum gross weight and outside (forward) of the center of gravity envelope. It is likely that the airplane was unable to climb over the terrain as a result of the airplane's weight and balance configuration combined with the weather conditions in the area.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from terrain while maneuvering at low altitude in turbulent conditions over mountainous terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's improper decision to traverse the mountainous area with the airplane over its maximum gross weight and with a forward center of gravity.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA362
- Event ID
- 20140902X63401
- Case number
- WPR14FA362
- 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. 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: ae840bb5f52044ce51d1b398e54888b4af9d80cf8c482876186a5411b7518bf2; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:25:13.157Z.