NYC96LA136 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Blue Knob Valley Airport (7G4) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA136
- 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
- N4776E
- Operator
- Vernon D'Arley Mock
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blue Knob Valley Airport (7G4)To 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Airspeed › Excessive
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff roll, the pilot observed that the airspeed indicator was inoperative. However, he said that by the time he realized the problem, the airplane was too far down the runway to abort the takeoff. He continued the takeoff and flew about 1.2 hours before returning to landing. The airplane was high and fast during the first approach to land, and the pilot decided to go-around. After the second approach, the airplane touched down about half way down the 3,415 foot long runway. The pilot stated that he applied full brakes; however, the airplane was too fast and continued off the departure end of the runway. Subsequently, it encountered rough terrain and was damaged. Examination of the airplane revealed that the pitot tube was blocked with a sediment.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to identify the inoperative airspeed indication and abort the takeoff, while there was sufficient runway remaining; excessive speed during the approach/landing; and the pilot's failure to perform a go-around after not attaining a proper touchdown point during the landing. A factor relating to the accident was: the blocked pitot tube, which resulted in an inoperative airspeed indicator.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA136
- Event ID
- 20001208X06095
- Case number
- NYC96LA136
- 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: 4524bdf9188a7e1763cf3e00716c2f4397abdd27d5892ed886b6faee4460d06d; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:06:27.568Z.