BFO92LA111 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Mallory Airport (WV12) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92LA111
- 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 172
- 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
- N12921
- Operator
- Benjamin Mallory
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mallory Airport (WV12), SO CHARLESTON, WVTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Airspeed, not attained
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS LANDING ON RUNWAY 33 WHEN, ACCORDING TO A WITNESS, THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN NOSE GEAR FIRST AND BOUNCED BACK INTO THE AIR. THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED AND TOUCHED DOWN AGAIN, PARTIALLY OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE WITNESS STATED THAT THE PILOT ADDED SOME POWER AND WAS HOLDING THE AIRPLANE IN A NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE WHILE CLIMBING SLOWLY WITH THE FLAPS FULL DOWN. THE WITNESS REPORTED THAT AS THE AIRPLANE APPROACHED TREES PAST THE RUNWAY END, THE AIRPLANE TURNED LEFT AND HEADED DOWNWIND, STILL IN A HIGH PITCH ATTITUDE BEFORE IT DESCENDED AND CRASHED. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, AFTER HE UNSUCCESSFULLY TRIED TO LAND, AND WITH INSUFFICIENT RUNWAY REMAINING, HE APPLIED FULL POWER TO TAKEOFF. AS HE WAS CLIMBING HE TURNED TO AVOID TREES PAST THE RUNWAY END. HE TRIED TO GAIN AIRSPEED, BUT THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES AND NOSED INTO THE GROUND.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO ATTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED TO OUTCLIMB OBSTACLES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92LA111
- Event ID
- 20001211X15078
- Case number
- BFO92LA111
- 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: f7ba79e5fe40b92f3a306c51560cec497afd582122f7fab209e76d3a9744950d; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:12:12.444Z.