ATL96FA029 · Cessna 210H
Cessna 210H · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK) to Maury County Airport (MRC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96FA029
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 210H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N44DJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK), Cincinnati, OHTo Maury County Airport (MRC)
- 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
- 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 › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noninstrument-rated pilot filed an IFR flight plan and proceeded at night on a cross-country flight to Columbia, TN. During arrival, he contacted Memphis ARTCC and requested the VOR/DME approach to the Maury County Airport, which was a straight-in approach from the northwest. The initial approach fix (IAF) and the final approach fix (FAF) were 11.4 and 5.4 miles northwest of the airport. At about 2136 CST, ARTCC cleared the pilot to descend and maintain 3,000 feet until past the IAF. At 2141, ARTCC informed the pilot that the airplane was 500' low; he responded that he was climbing back to 3,000 feet. At 2142, ARTCC cleared the pilot for the approach. The last communication with the pilot was at 2147, when radar service was terminated. At about 2155, the airplane collided with trees and crashed approximately 10 miles southeast of the airport. The weather (at 2200) was in part: 400 feet overcast, visibility 1-3/4 miles with fog and drizzle, and wind from 030 degrees at 4 knots. Witnesses reported that they heard the airplane circling before it crashed. The wreckage was found distributed over an area of about 600 feet. Toxicology tests of the pilot's blood and liver fluid showed 11 mcg/ml and 8 mcg/ml, respectively, of Butalbital. Butalbital is a barbiturate/sedative and is not approved by the FAA for use while operating an aircraft.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to follow procedures/directives by flying in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) without proper training/certification; and his failure (or inability) to follow proper IFR procedures and maintain proper altitude during an instrument approach, which resulted in a collision with obstacles (trees) and the ground. Factors relating to the accident were: darkness, instrument weather conditions, and pilot impairment from use of a medication that is not approved by the FAA for use while operating an aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96FA029
- Event ID
- 20001208X05087
- Case number
- ATL96FA029
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-01-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 13aa0ff57d8219c2e2662c3febe763c621a4d1b4df99d31c17e2b95f6a28089c; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:28:17.119Z.