Cessna 172 - Accidents and Incidents

Accidents and Incidents

• On October 23, 1964, David Box, lead singer for The Crickets on their 1960 release version of "Peggy Sue Got Married" and "Don't Cha Know" and later a solo artist, was killed when the Cessna 172 he was aboard crashed in northwest Harris County, Texas while en route to a performance. Box was the second lead vocalist for The Crickets to die in a plane crash after Buddy Holly.

• On August 31, 1969, Rocky Marciano was killed when the Cessna 172, in which he was a passenger, crashed on approach to an airfield outside Newton, Iowa.

• On September 25, 1978, a Cessna 172, N7711G, collided with Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182, a Boeing 727. The two aircraft crashed over San Diego, California. There were a total of 144 fatalities: two in the Cessna 172, 135 on the PSA Flight 182 and seven on the ground.

• On May 28, 1987, a rented Reims Cessna F172P, D-ECJB, was used by a German teenage pilot Mathias Rust to fly an unauthorized flight from Helsinki-Malmi Airport through Soviet airspace to land near the Red Square in Moscow, all without being intercepted by Soviet air defense.

• On April 9, 1990, Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2254, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia, collided head-on with a Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172, N99501, while en route from Gadsden Municipal Airport to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The Cessna crashed, killing two occupants, but the Brasilia made a safe emergency landing.

• On January 5, 2002, high school student Charles J. Bishop stole a Cessna 172, N2731N, and crashed it into the side of the Bank of America Tower in downtown Tampa, Florida, killing only himself and otherwise causing very little damage.

• On April 6, 2009, a Cessna 172N, C-GFJH, was stolen by a student from Confederation College in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada and entered United States airspace over Lake Superior. The plane was intercepted and followed by NORAD F-16s, finally landing on Highway 60 in Ellsinore, Missouri after a seven-hour flight. The student pilot, a Canadian citizen born in Turkey, Adam Dylan Leon, formerly known as Yavuz Berke, was suffering from depression and attempted to commit suicide by being shot down. Instead, he was arrested shortly after landing. On November 3, 2009, he was sentenced to two years in a US federal prison after he pleaded guilty in August 2009 to all three charges against him: interstate transportation of a stolen aircraft, importation of a stolen aircraft, and illegal entry. College procedures at the time permitted students access to aircraft and the keys were routinely left in the aircraft.