ATL92LA145 · Cessna 180B
Cessna 180B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL92LA145
- 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 180B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N9581B
- Operator
- Sessions, Carl E. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Fuselage, seat › Failure, total
- Fuselage, seat › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE AIRPLANE ACCELERATED TO 20 MPH, DURING THE INITIAL TAKEOFF ROLL, THE PILOT'S SEAT ASSEMBLY COLLAPSED AND HE WAS DISPLACED AFT FROM THE PILOT'S STATION. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT HE WAS OUT OF REACH OF THE FLIGHT AND THROTTLE CONTROLS, AND COULD NOT REDUCE THE THROTTLE. THE UNCONTROLLED AIRPLANE VEERED LEFT AND GROUND LOOPED. AFTER THE PILOT EXITED THE AIRPLANE, THE AIRPLANE BURST INTO FLAMES. THE FIRE DESTROYED THE ENTIRE AIRPLANE AND LEFT SEAT ASSEMBLY. THE FAILED SEAT COMPONENT WAS ALSO DESTROYED IN THE FIRE. IN HIS REPORT, THE PILOT SAID THAT THE 'SEAT FAILED TO STAY LOCKED.' HOWEVER, DURING A LATER TELEPHONE CONVERSATION, HE STATED THAT THE RIGHT REAR PORTION OF THE SEAT APPEARED TO HAVE COLLAPSED. HE DID NOT RECALL THAT THE ENTIRE SEAT ASSEMBLY MOVED.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT'S SEAT ASSEMBLY FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON(S) WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF CONTROL DURING THE TAKEOFF ROLL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL92LA145
- Event ID
- 20001211X15048
- Case number
- ATL92LA145
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: af8a4ae90902b9d6f372c0e07b2c947a5ea0805b885906795d10201fa62f4c3f; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:54:44.508Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states that after the pilot exited, the airplane burst into flames and "THE FIRE DESTROYED THE ENTIRE AIRPLANE AND LEFT SEAT ASSEMBLY"; the record showed substantial damage.