WPR24FA057 · Cessna 172G
Cessna 172G · Accident: loss of visual reference on approach
From McMinnville Municipal Airport (MMV) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24FA057
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172G
- 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
- N3992L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McMinnville Municipal Airport (MMV), McMinnville, ORTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 57 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Loss of visual reference
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and two pilot-rated passengers were returning to their home airport after they were advised by the pilot’s flight instructor not to return due to dense fog that reduced visibility to about 500 ft. During their arrival, the pilot made multiple advisory radio calls that confirmed his intention to land and activated the pilot-controlled runway lights (PCL). Recorded ADS-B data showed that while on the downwind leg, after passing the runway lights, the airplane veered toward the runway centerline as it continued the downwind leg. The pilot then performed a 180° base to final turn and overshot the runway centerline twice. The airplane then flew past the runway threshold and off to the side of the runway, where it impacted a power distribution line support pole about 694 ft from the approach end of the runway threshold. A postaccident fire substantially damaged the airplane. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical malfunctions of failures that would have precluded normal operation. A weather study confirmed that instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) prevailed about the time of the airplane’s arrival. The pilot likely lost his ability to maintain visual reference through the fog during the landing approach.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to continue flight under visual flight rules into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in collision with an obstacle while landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24FA057
- Event ID
- 20231217193533
- Case number
- WPR24FA057
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2023-12-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c8a1868fae3b303588f96891be76641aac5560da74b64a7ac39da911c51db4fc; retrieved 2026-09-15T08:09:25.186Z.