In the '60s, '70s, and early '80s, CLMRG responded to small plane crashes in the Sierra seemingly every year. The crashes were typically in storms, and often at or near passes. We used to think that the pilot was trying to gain altitude to get over the pass but the aircraft just didn't have the lift. But I have believed the Bernoulli effect sometimes made him think he was safely several hundred feet high, when he was instead a little too low. In poor visibility, he never knew what hit him.
Here is one that got a bit of coverage:
Lauren Elder. For our part in it, scroll down to
#34, July 1976. It was made into a
book and also a movie.
Nowadays, things are different. Better weather prediction and better technology like non-barometric altimeters, for example.
