CESSNA 172R — Denton, TX

What happened

While landing at their destination airport, the commercial pilot and flight instructor flew the instrument landing system approach to runway 18. Weather was reported as 200-feet vertical and 1/2-mile visibility with fog. An observer, who sat in a rear seat, recalled that the airplane entered a fog bank during the approach. The observer saw airport lighting to the airplane's left, which was about the time the pilots realized that they were not aligned with the runway. Rather than fly the missed approach procedure, the pilot attempted to circle to runway 36 despite the weather being below minimums to circle. As the airplane set up to land on runway 36, the pilots realized that there was insufficient runway remaining to safely land but did not execute the published missed approach procedure, and, while making a left turn, the airplane impacted terrain. The airplane's flight plan was not closed out, which enabled air traffic control to initiate a search of the airplane. Incomplete radar data was used to locate the accident airplane. Despite searching 4 hours, the responders could not locate the airplane. Finally, a cellular telephone belonging to one of the pilots was "pinged" and responders were able to obtain a location; the airplane was found shortly thereafter. A postaccident review of all data available revealed that an additional radar site had recoded additional radar points, the last of which was 259 yards from the actual crash site.

An editorial "what led to it / how to avoid it" analysis for this accident is generated separately and will appear here.