CHI92LA212 · Cessna 172H
Hall Air Cessna 172H · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Thacker Airport (11LL) to Porter County Municipal Airport (VPZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92LA212
- 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 172H
- 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
- N8262L
- Operator
- Hall Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Thacker Airport (11LL)To Porter County Municipal Airport (VPZ), VALPARISO, IN
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED HE PERFORMED A SOFT FIELD TAKEOFF FROM A SOD FIELD WHICH HAD BEEN RAINED UPON DURING THE PREVIOUS EVENING. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, THE AIRPLANE DID NOT CLIMB ONCE IT HAD LIFTED OFF AND WAS IN GROUND EFFECT. THE PILOT STATED HE DECIDED TO ABORT THE FLIGHT AND LAND INTO A CORN FIELD BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF CLIMB PERFORMANCE. THE PILOT STATED HE USED THE AIRPLANE MANUFACTURER'S PRESCRIBED SOFT FIELD TAKEOFF TECHNIQUES. WHEN ASKED IF HE HAD EXTENDED THE REQUIRED WING FLAPS PRIOR TO TAKEOFF INITIATION HE STATED HE DID NOT.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PLANNING AND PREPARATION ON THE PART OF THE PILOT. FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS ACCIDENT WERE A LACK OF RECENT EXPERIENCE IN THE TYPE OF OPERATION THE PILOT WAS UNDERTAKING, A PROPER CLIMB RATE NOT OBTAINED BY THE PILOT AND REMEDIAL ACTION NOT PERFORMED BY THE PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92LA212
- Event ID
- 20001211X15121
- Case number
- CHI92LA212
- 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: ebdd9ab2e7aec5bca3ea71e2cef2a1cc7938569dbaba7e5c444bab04fc11b394; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:54:33.450Z.