NYC96FA094 · Cessna 172RG
Cessna 172RG · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Duanesburg Airport (4B1) to Trenton Robbinsville Airport (N87)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96FA094
- 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
- 2 · 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 172RG
- 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
- N9678B
- Operator
- Michael B. Ruggera · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Duanesburg Airport (4B1)To Trenton Robbinsville Airport (N87), ROBBINSVILE, NJ
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not attained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger boarded the airplane for a return flight to their home base. A dog, the passenger's pet, was strapped into a special harness in the rear seat. The passenger occupied the front right seat. Witnesses reported that the takeoff roll appeared to be longer than usual, and after liftoff, the airplane did not climb. The airplane then rolled right, and descended into trees about 3/4 of a mile from the departure end of the runway. The impact site was soft dirt due to recent rains. Rotational damage was sustained on the front surface of the propeller blades. Examination of the engine did not disclose evidence of mechanical malfunction. Investigation revealed that the dog's death was due to suffocation from ingestion of a plastic bag that contained bits of meat. The pilot and passenger respectively weighed about 200 and 300 pounds.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to attain adequate airspeed (or abort the takeoff while there was sufficient runway remaining), which resulted in a stall after liftoff and collision with the terrain. A factor relating to the accident was: the pilot's distraction due to events related to incapacitation of an animal aboard the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96FA094
- Event ID
- 20001208X05654
- Case number
- NYC96FA094
- 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: 794b3241332d47d8f001555370f1e31ab7e3f01100291d28da532159e609a12b; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:22:08.941Z.