ATL93FA136 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From HVL · Huntsville, AL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL93FA136
- 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 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
- N13738
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HVL · Huntsville, ALTo 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE ATTEMPTED TO EXECUTE A LANDING AT THE PRIVATE GRASS AIRFIELD. HE STATED THAT, AFTER TOUCHDOWN, THE AIRCRAFT BEGAN TO PORPOISE AND HE EXECUTED A GO-AROUND. THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED INTO TERRAIN APPROXIMATELY 1/4 MILE FROM THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. A WITNESS STATED THAT HE OBSERVED THE AIRCRAFT DURING THE ATTEMPTED LANDING AND GO-AROUND. HE STATED THAT THE AIRCRAFT APPROACH WAS SO HIGH AND STEEP, THAT HE THOUGHT THE AIRCRAFT WAS GOING TO MAKE A LOW PASS AND CIRCLE TO LAND. THE WITNESS STATED THAT HE OBSERVED THE AIRCRAFT LAND ON THE LAST 1/3 OF THE GRASS RUNWAY, SAW THE TIRES SKID ON THE GRASS MOMENTARILY, AND THEN THE ENGINE SOUNDED AS IF IT WENT TO FULL POWER AND THE AIRCRAFT BECAME AIRBORNE. HE STATED THE NOSE THEN ROSE SLIGHTLY, THE AIRCRAFT BANKED TO THE LEFT, AND IMPACTED THE TERRAIN IN A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POORLY PLANNED APPROACH AND THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO EXECUTE A GO-AROUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL93FA136
- Event ID
- 20001211X12762
- Case number
- ATL93FA136
- 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: 538d8875c9b1743f58e23d91b5cdeabe7660f133e581dd41eb1ddf4cebfc2ba5; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:13:42.031Z.