ATL92FA181 · Cessna 210B
Cessna 210B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From 6A3 to RZZ · Roanoke Rapids, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL92FA181
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 210B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N9622X
- Operator
- Clontz, R. and Wilson, J.T.
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6A3To RZZ · Roanoke Rapids, NC
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC); Stall
- 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 › Stall, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT, A PILOT RATED PASSENGER, AND THEIR WIVES WERE TAKING OFF FROM AN UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT, ABOUT 32 MINUTES BEFORE SUNRISE. WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE RAMP, AND THE DEPARTURE AND APPROACH ENDS OF THE AIRPORT WERE OBSCURED BY GROUND FOG. NO FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED FOR THE FLIGHT, NOR WAS THERE ANY RECORD OF A WEATHER BRIEFING. A MECHANIC REPORTED THAT HE HEARD THE AIRCRAFT TAKE OFF, THEN HE HEARD ABOUT 5 SECONDS OF SILENCE BEFORE HE HEARD THE AIRCRAFT CRASH. THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED INTO A CORN FIELD IN A STEEP, NOSE LOW ATTITUDE, AND WAS DESTROYED BY IMPACT FORCES AND FIRE. THE CRASH SITE WAS LOCATED ABOUT 600 FEET SOUTH OF THE DEPARTURE RUNWAY, AND ABOUT 1,100 FEET SHORT OF THE DEPARTURE END. AN EXAMINATION OF THE PROPELLER REVEALED EVIDENCE OF ROTATION AT IMPACT. THE ENGINE RAN SUCESSFULLY ON A TEST STAND AFTER THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT HAD MENTIONED THAT THE VACUUM PUMP DID NOT WORK ON AN AIRPLANE THAT HE HAD BEEN FLYING; HOWEVER, EXAMINATION OF THE PUMP AND GYRO INSTRUMENTS DID NOT REVEAL EVIDENCE OF A MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S ATTEMPTED TAKEOFF IN FOGGY CONDITIONS, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRCRAFT CONTROL DURING THE INITIAL CLIMBOUT, WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL AND IMPACT WITH TERRAIN. FACTORS WERE THE PREVAILING FOG AND THE NIGHT LIGHTING CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL92FA181
- Event ID
- 20001211X15583
- Case number
- ATL92FA181
- 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: b3025cf55bff23c163f181c0b4e974ef800f0634c0cd37978d8ffccc2e22e6ae; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:56:51.869Z.