ATL94LA107 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Bob Sikes Airport (CEW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL94LA107
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N73846
- Operator
- Holman, Jerry P. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bob Sikes Airport (CEW), Crestview, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Dual student › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE DUAL STUDENT AND HIS INSTRUCTOR WERE IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN FOR LANDING AT A PRIVATE, GRASS AIRSTRIP. THE STUDENT WAS AT THE CONTROLS. WHILE ON SHORT FINAL, A GUST OF WIND WAS ENCOUNTERED, WHICH RESULTED IN A DRIFT TO THE RIGHT. FULL POWER WAS ADDED BY BOTH PILOTS, AND A GO-AROUND WAS INITIATED. DURING THE GO-AROUND, THE RIGHT WING TIP CONTACTED TREES. CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE WAS LOST, AND THE AIRPLANE CRASHED INTO THE ROOF OF A MOBILE HOME WHICH WAS LOCATED ADJACENT TO THE RUNWAY. AT A NEARBY AIRPORT, SURFACE WINDS WERE REPORTED TO BE FROM 250 DEGREES AT 11 KNOTS, WITH GUSTS TO 16 KNOTS. THE PILOTS REPORTED THAT WHILE IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT, THEY OBSERVED THE WIND SOCK INDICATING VARIABLE WIND DIRECTIONS, AND THE SOCK WAS 'STRAIGHT OUT.'
Probable cause
THE STUDENT PILOT'S INADEQUATE COMPENSATION FOR GUSTING WIND CONDITIONS DURING THE APPROACH TO LAND. FACTORS WERE THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT'S INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF HIS STUDENT, THE GUSTING WIND CONDITIONS, AND THE TREES LOCATED IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL94LA107
- Event ID
- 20001206X01218
- Case number
- ATL94LA107
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4c6ee20ae3715a1a6551f6527ef448e7b5219866bde22bfc29c2b17080f446d9; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:04:40.114Z.