FTW98LA083 · Cessna R172K
Cessna R172K · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Marion County Regional Airport (FLP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA083
- 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 R172K
- 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
- N736VQ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marion County Regional Airport (FLP), Flippin, ARTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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 › Go-around, delayed
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after returing to the 3,200 ft turf airstrip to land, he descended to 1,400 feet MSL and entered a left downwind for runway 24. He added that after configuring the airplane for landing, he turned final approach. The pilot further stated that 'in the course of the final approach, the sun suddenly blinded me and I didn't have any forward vision.' He concluded with the statement, 'I apparently drifted to the right of course and struck a tree . . .' The right wing of the airplane impacted trees located north of the final approach course. The non-rated passenger, who was seated in the right front seat, also stated that 'on landing we were blinded by the sun.' The airplane was equipped with sun visors for both front seats.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain runway alignment during the approach, and his delayed decision to execute a go-around. A related factor was the sunglare interfering with the pilot's view.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA083
- Event ID
- 20001208X09317
- Case number
- FTW98LA083
- 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: eb27c332a53d9a88b52cbd46c0e45eaf80d5658e396f65e575ab713390c69c5f; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:40:18.246Z.