CHI94LA289 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to 0GC · Schaumburg, IL
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94LA289
- 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 172
- 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
- N97618
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 0GC · Schaumburg, IL
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft weight and balance, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, improper
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Plato Center, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS ATTEMPTING TO SOFT FIELD TAKEOFF FROM A 2400 FOOT RUNWAY WITH 20 DEGREES OF FLAPS. THE GROSS WEIGHT OF THE AIRPLANE WITH 30 GALLONS FUEL AND 4 OCCUPANTS WAS ESTIMATED AT 2540 POUNDS. THE MAXIMUM CERTIFIED WEIGHT OF THE AIRPLANE WAS 2400 POUNDS. THE CALCULATED TAKEOFF DISTANCE FOR THE CONDITIONS WAS 1860 FEET AT 2400 POUNDS WITH A FLAP SETTING OF 10 DEGREES. THE PILOT HANDBOOK RECOMMENDS A 10 DEGREE FLAP SETTING FOR SHORT FIELD TAKEOFFS AND THAT FLAP SETTINGS GREATER THAN 10 DEGREES ARE NOT APPROVED FOR TAKEOFF. THE AIRPLANE CONTACTED TREES AT THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY AND CAME TO REST INVERTED. POST-CRASH OPERATION OF THE ENGINE AT FULL THROTTLE RESULTED IN 2200 RPM.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S ATTEMPT TO TAKE OFF ON A SHORT RUNWAY WITH A GROSS WEIGHT WHICH EXCEEDED THE MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE WEIGHT AND AN IMPROPER FLAP SETTING. A FACTOR WAS THE LOCATION OF OBSTRUCTIONS (TREES) AT THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94LA289
- Event ID
- 20001206X02011
- Case number
- CHI94LA289
- 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: 2b9356338c99c3e59b87c970741b39890087275d3fc271463045725ec6157bc8; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:45:02.749Z.