1969 Newton Cessna 172 crash
Executive Flyers Cessna 172H · VFR flight into adverse weather
From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) to Desmoines, IA
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172H
- 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
- N3149X
- Operator
- Executive Flyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)To Desmoines, IA
- 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 (fixed base operator)
- 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
- Uncontrolled descent
- 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
- Uncontrolled collision with ground/water
- 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
- Continued VFR flight into adverse weather conditions
- 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 › Attempted operation beyond experience/ability level
- Pilot in command › Continued VFR flight into adverse weather conditions
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On August 31, 1969, a Cessna 172 crashed in Newton, Iowa, killing former world heavyweight champion boxer Rocky Marciano and two others.
The flight
On Sunday, August 31, 1969 at 8:05 pm CDT, the Cessna 172 with registration number N3149X crashed in a pasture near Newton, Iowa, approximately 30 mi east of Des Moines.
It had departed from Chicago Midway Airport at 6 pm (1800 hrs) and was en route to Des Moines, where Marciano was to celebrate his 46th birthday at a party the next day. This was to be a surprise party for him; he was to give a speech in support of his friend, Louis Fratto's son. Marciano intended to later fly to Florida to celebrate his birthday at home with his family.
Accident
A storm system was building in the Des Moines region at the time of the accident. The airplane's pilot was 37-year-old Glenn Belz, who was not experienced with night flying or flying during bad weather. Belz decided to head to Newton instead of continuing to Des Moines as planned, to avoid the bad weather. While trying to land at Newton the aircraft entered a low cloud, attempted an overshoot and the pilot lost control, impacting a lone oak tree in a pasture. The airplane was also short of fuel at the time of the crash.
Witness Coleen Swarts observed the airplane reverse its course and then heard a loud sound as it crashed.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1969 Newton Cessna 172 crash” (revision 1321275582, 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 remarks
DARK NIGHT.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: 1969 Newton Cessna 172 crash
- Article
- 1969 Newton Cessna 172 crash
- Revision
- 1321275582 · 2025-11-09 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q17985165
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19690831P030940
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "1969 Newton Cessna 172 crash" (page 43722740, revision 1321275582); merged with NTSB case NTSB19690831P030940 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19690831P030940: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19690831P030940
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19690831P030940: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19690831P030940: operated under Part 91: General aviation (fixed base operator)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19690831P030940: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19690831P030940: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "1969 Newton Cessna 172 crash" and NTSB case NTSB19690831P030940, 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.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.