ATL92FA108 · Cessna 172B
Cessna 172B · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From 3A9 · Sevierville, TN to Richard B Russell Airport (RMG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL92FA108
- 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 172B
- 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
- N8102X
- Operator
- Baldwin, Ronnie W. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3A9 · Sevierville, TNTo Richard B Russell Airport (RMG), Rome, GA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS ON A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. THERE IS NO RECORD OF THE PILOT HAVING RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING FOR THE FLIGHT. THERE WAS HEAVY RAIN AND THUNDERSHOWER ACTIVITY IN THE ACCIDENT AREA AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. SHORTLY AFTER DEPARTURE, THE NON INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT CONTACTED APPROACH CONTROL AND STATED THAT HE WAS LOST AND ASKED FOR RADAR VECTORS TO THE NEAREST AIRPORT. THE PILOT'S FLIGHT LOG BOOK SHOWED THAT HE HAD LESS THAN ONE HOUR OF INSTRUMENT FLIGHT INSTRUCTION IN PREPARATION FOR THE PRIVATE PILOT EXAMINATION. RADAR DATA SHOWED THE AIRCRAFT MAKING SEVERAL CLIMBS, DESCENTS, AND ERRATIC TURNS PRIOR TO LOSS OF RADAR CONTACT. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE TERRAIN AT APPROXIMATELY 5900 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT AS A RESULT OF SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. THE LACK OF TOTAL FLIGHT TIME, AND RAIN IN THE ACCIDENT AREA WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL92FA108
- Event ID
- 20001211X14559
- Case number
- ATL92FA108
- 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: ba2e8e622efd104bc311a03fd206d870b01732cadd0c78895a3837ac6f9e5aec; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:11:04.140Z.