IAD96FA132 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Ona Airpark (12V) to I07
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD96FA132
- 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
- 3 · 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 172P
- 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
- N65632
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ona Airpark (12V), Milton, WVTo I07
- 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, delayed
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was on climb out from an aborted landing on runway 04 at Summerville Airport when the airplane descended and struck the ground. According to a witness, during the first approach to land on the 3000 foot long runway, the pilot performed steep, tight turns. On the first landing attempt, the airplane bounced several times and during the aborted landing, the airplane nearly struck a building. The second approach to land was also steep and tight. The airplane again bounced several times and the landing was also aborted. According to witnesses, the airplane did not climb higher than tree-top level on climb out, turned steeply to the crosswind leg, stalled and entered the trees nose down. Another witness reported the engine was running until the ground impact occurred. The airplane struck the ground in a nose down attitude and was consumed in a post crash fire. Examination of the airplane did not disclose evidence of mechanical malfunction. The pilot obtained a private pilot certificate a month before the accident date.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper flare, his delay in aborting a landing, and his failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which resulted in a bounced landing and a stall during climb out in an attempt to avoid collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD96FA132
- Event ID
- 20001208X06522
- Case number
- IAD96FA132
- 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: a105082223b1c6068d0f620cd6e0b9bbc9e04bbaaad9bb5eb767520aab37e759; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:13:41.380Z.