FTW99FA006 · Cessna 172M
W.L. Frank Cessna 172M · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Wiley Post Airport (PWA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99FA006
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172M
- 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
- N172JF
- Operator
- W.L. Frank
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wiley Post Airport (PWA)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
- Maneuvering
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Suicide
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses observed the airplane roll into a steep bank and descend vertically into the ground. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical discrepancies that would have prevented normal operation. The operator observed the airplane taxiing for takeoff at a high speed. He called the air traffic control tower and requested that the controller relay a message to the pilot to return to the ramp. The airplane had taken off by the time the message was relayed. Although the pilot acknowledged receiving the message, radar data indicated the airplane did not turn back toward the airport, but continued toward the accident site. The site was located adjacent to a church where a friend of the pilot was attending services. The friend had reportedly declined a marriage proposal from the pilot the night before the accident. The medical examiner classified the pilot's death as a suicide. Toxicological testing detected 0.028 ug/ml diazepam (Valium) in kidney tissue, 0.077 ug/ml diazepam in liver tissue, 0.134 nordiazepam (metabolite of diazepam) in liver tissue, and 0.069 ug/ml nordiazepam in kidney tissue. The FAA does not approve the use of diazepam by pilots.
Probable cause
Suicide.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99FA006
- Event ID
- 20001211X11252
- Case number
- FTW99FA006
- 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: aae24d854e44fef0f90ec75cc139bf9696161feeb3cb1ca95de79b94a5142ad6; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:21:33.574Z.