CESSNA 208B CARAVAN, CODY, WYO., OCT. 29, 2003. The pilot of FedEx Caravan N791FE, operated by Corporate Air, of Billings, Mont., while holding for better weather on approach to Yellowstone Regional Airport in Cody, filed a pirep about light rime icing. Visibility was 1.75 statute miles and there was a 200-foot overcast ceiling. After the airplane was cleared for the approach, three witnesses saw it on the downwind leg, just past midfield, at an estimated altitude of 500 feet. Shortly thereafter, one of them heard the engine “spool up to high power…[like reversing] the pitch of the propeller to slow down.” The last radar contact was when the airplane was downwind and nearly abeam the departure end of Runway 4.
Five witnesses said the airplane emerged from the overcast and banked “sharply to the left, then back to the right, then back to the left, then took a hard bank to the right,” rolled inverted and struck the highway just south of the airport perimeter. The airplane slid down the embankment and into a lake, becoming partially submerged. The pilot, the sole occupant of the airplane, was killed.
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