Again, someone loaded 4 fully grown adults into a 172. Then they did something even more stupid, flew up a canyon in the summer in the mountains of Utah.
While a 172 may technically have 4 seats, it is horribly underpowered for that load. It has a legal useful load with full fuel as low as 425 to as high as 600 lbs depending on its model year and particular configuration. So if each of the passengers weighed 125 lbs it may be legal to fly but still a stupid move. People do this because a 172 is cheap to rent and they want to show off for friends. Couple this massive mistake at take off with the fact that Utah is at altitude. Planes behave much differently at sea level than in an area where the runway starts a mile high. We have thin air. Whenever I fly in a costal area I always feel like I am flying in thick air, it is nice. Couple that with hot summer days when the air is even less dense. And then, fly up a canyon, in the mountains. You should always fly DOWN canyons. Anytime you have to fly up a canyon (I would argue you never HAVE to fly up a canyon), you need to fly up the side of the canyon so that when you get that sick feeling that the terrain is rising faster than you can climb, you can do a steep descending turn into the canyon and reverse your course. I don’t know where this guy learned to fly, but mountain flying is special and needs special attention during training. If I rented out 172s I think I would just remove the rear seats.
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