WPR19LA055 · Cessna 180 Undesignat
Cessna 180 Undesignat · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19LA055
- 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 180 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N4934A
- Operator
- Caleb Arnold
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN), Townsend, MTTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 63 years (built 1956)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
There were no witnesses to the accident; however, a witness saw the airplane flying about 10 to 15 feet above the river before it disappeared from view behind the riverbank. The pilot reported that he had no memory of the event and could not recall the accident flight; the passenger stated that, near the end of the flight, “a line wire got in the way.” The airplane came to rest in a snow-covered field about 1/4 mile from power transmission lines that had been broken, and the vertical stabilizer displayed damage consistent with a wire strike. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of preaccident mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the pilot’s decision to operate at low level, and his failure to maintain clearance from power lines. Astronomical data revealed that the accident occurred about 1 minute before sunset, which may have contributed to the pilot’s failure to see and avoid the power lines.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from power lines while maneuvering at low level, which resulted in a wire strike and subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19LA055
- Event ID
- 20190107X60530
- Case number
- WPR19LA055
- 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, cause areas. 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: 142fbacde9b0320e7f56ab95d20011cc181f3055e6c6fe1d77f7c5d806c3f02e; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:32:03.254Z.