Cessna 177B crash
Joe Reid Cessna 177B · Loss of control and crash during initial climb
From Half Moon Bay Airport (CYS) to Lincoln Airport (LNK)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96MA079
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 3
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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 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
- N35207
- Operator
- Joe Reid
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Half Moon Bay Airport (CYS)To Lincoln Airport (LNK), Lincoln
- 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
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe 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 control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
Jessica Whitney Dubroff (May 5, 1988 – April 11, 1996) was a seven-year-old American student pilot who died while attempting to become the youngest person to fly a light aircraft across the United States. On the second day of her attempt, the Cessna 177B Cardinal single-engine aircraft, piloted by her flight instructor, Joe Reid, crashed during a rainstorm immediately after takeoff from Cheyenne Regional Airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming, killing Dubroff, her 57-year-old father Lloyd Dubroff, and Reid.
Although billed by the media as a pilot, Dubroff was not legally able to be a pilot because of her age. She did not possess a medical certificate or a student pilot certificate, since a medical certificate requires a minimum age of 16 and a pilot certificate requires a minimum age of 17, according to U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. At the time of her trip, there was no record-keeping body that recognized any feats by underage pilots. Nevertheless, local, national, and international news media picked up and publicized Dubroff's story, and closely followed her attempt.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the crash and concluded that the fatality was caused by Reid's improper decision to take off in poor weather conditions, his overloading the aircraft, and his failure to maintain airspeed. The three factors resulted in a stall and subsequent fatal crash in a residential neighborhood. The NTSB also determined that "contributing to the [instructor's] decision to take off was a desire to adhere to an overly ambitious itinerary, in part, because of media commitments."
Crash
At 8:24 a.m. MDT, Reid's aircraft began its takeoff from Runway 30 to the northwest, in rain, strong gusty crosswinds and turbulence. According to witnesses, the plane lifted off and climbed slowly, with its nose high and its wings wobbling. It began a gradual right turn, and after reaching an altitude of a few hundred feet, the plane rolled out of its turn, then descended rapidly, crashing at a near-vertical angle into Kornegay Court, a street in a residential neighborhood. Dubroff, her father, and Reid were killed instantly by blunt force trauma sustained from impact forces. Reid was allegedly manipulating the controls during this particular flight segment.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident and published a detailed final report eleven months later on March 11, 1997. From the official point of view, the pilot in command was flight instructor Reid, who was the only one on board rated to fly the aircraft. The investigation focused on his decision-making prior to takeoff and his actions once airborne.
Several experienced pilots who were at Cheyenne Regional Airport around the time of the crash testified they considered the weather unsuitable for flight, as a thunderstorm seemed to be forming or moving over the airfield. In addition, investigators determined the weight of the aircraft during its takeoff roll exceeded its maximum allowable takeoff weight (MTOW) by 96 lbs, which would have increased the stall speed by about two percent. Since the aircraft was flying in moderate to heavy rain, the NTSB calculated that the water flowing on the wings would have further increased the stall speed by about 1.5%. A higher stall speed reduces the margin of safety at slower airspeeds, such as during a climb.
Like most flight instructors giving dual instruction, Reid was seated on the right side, while the aircraft's primary flight instruments were mounted on the left, in front of Dubroff in this case. Investigators speculated that because of the heavy rain in his immediate climb path, Reid's forward visibility became greatly restricted. To maintain control through the climbing right turn, he would have had to turn his head to the left to see the flight instruments (most critically the attitude and airspeed indicators) and to the right to see the ground through the side window. Such side-to-side head motion, combined with the worsening flight visibility during the climb and the reduced stall margin, could have led to spatial disorientation and loss of control.
Probable cause
The NTSB concluded that the probable cause of the accident was Reid's "improper decision to take off into deteriorating weather conditions (including turbulence, gusty winds, and an advancing thunderstorm and associated precipitation) when the airplane was overweight and when the density altitude was higher than he was accustomed to, resulting in a stall caused by failure to maintain airspeed." The NTSB further determined that "contributing to the pilot in command's decision to take off was a desire to adhere to an overly ambitious itinerary, in part, because of media commitments."
Text from the Wikipedia article “Jessica Dubroff” (revision 1373184571, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
A 7 year old trainee (passenger), accompanied by her father (a passenger) and the pilot-in-command (PIC), were engaged in a trans-continental record attempt involving 6,660 miles of flying in 8 consecutive days. The 1st leg of the trip (about 8 hours of flying) had been accomplished the previous day and began/ended with considerable media attention. On the morning of the 2nd day, the PIC and the trainee participated in media interviews, pre-flighted, and then loaded the airplane. The PIC then received a weather briefing and was advised of moderate icing conditions, turbulence, IFR flight precautions, and a cold front in the area of the departure airport. The airplane was taxied in rain to takeoff on runway 30. While taxiing, the PIC acknowledged receiving information that the wind was from 280 degrees at 20 gusting 30 knots and that a departing Cessna 414 pilot reported moderate low-level windshear of +/- 15 knots. The airplane then departed on runway 30 towards a nearby thunderstorm and began a gradual turn to an easterly heading. Witnesses described the airplane's climb rate and speed as slow, and they observed the airplane enter a roll and descent that was consistent with a stall. Density altitude at the airport was 6,670 feet. The airplane's gross weight was calculated to be 84 pounds over the maximum limit at the time of the impact. (See: NTSB/AAR-97/02 for detailed info)
Probable cause
the pilot-in-command's improper decision to take off into deteriorating weather conditions (including turbulence, gusty winds, and an advancing thunderstorm and associated precipitation) when the airplane was overweight and when the density altitude was higher than he was accustomed to, resulting in a stall caused by failure to maintain airspeed. Contributing to the pilot-in-command's decision to take off was a desire to adhere to an overly ambitious itinerary, in part, because of media commitments.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Jessica Dubroff
- Article
- Jessica Dubroff
- Revision
- 1373184571 · 2026-09-04 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q769007
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record SEA96MA079
- Event ID
- 20001208X05676
- Case number
- SEA96MA079
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Jessica Dubroff" (page 198260, revision 1373184571); merged with NTSB case SEA96MA079 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record SEA96MA079: events.ev_date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record SEA96MA079
- Map position
- NTSB record SEA96MA079: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record SEA96MA079: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record SEA96MA079: operated under Part 91: General Aviation
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities (the NTSB record states no total)
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record SEA96MA079: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Jessica Dubroff" and NTSB case SEA96MA079, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- The date is the UTC date the NTSB stores; the local date may be a day earlier.