ATL92LA178 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: abrupt maneuver during takeoff
From No airport to No airport
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL92LA178
- 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 172M
- 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
- N19797
- Operator
- Deal, Michael D. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo No airport
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Abort, not used
- Pilot in command › Pull-up, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT WHEN HE ALIGNED THE AIRPLANE WITH THE RUNWAY FOR TAKE OFF, HE SAW A PERSON BESIDE IT, NEAR A MULCH PILE. HIS REPORT INFERRED THAT AS THE TAKE OFF ROLL BEGAN, HE NOTED THAT THE FIGURE WAS A DEER. THE DEER BEGAN RUNNING PARALLEL WITH THE TAKE OFF PATH, THEN VEERED TOWARD THE AIRPLANE. THE PILOT PULLED UP AND WENT OVER THE DEER. HOWEVER, THERE WAS INSUFFICIENT AIRSPEED TO CONTINUE FLIGHT. WHEN THE AIRPLANE CAME BACK DOWN ONTO THE RUNWAY, IT VEERED OFF OF THE RUNWAY TO THE LEFT. HE WAS UNABLE TO STOP THE AIRPLANE BEFORE IT COLLIDED WITH A TRUCK AND AN AIRPORT STORAGE HANGAR.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO ABORT THE TAKE OFF, AND HIS ABRUPT PULL UP WITH INSUFFICIENT AIRSPEED TO CONTINUE FLIGHT. FACTORS WERE THE INADEQUATE AIRSPEED AND THE INADVERTENT STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL92LA178
- Event ID
- 20001211X15593
- Case number
- ATL92LA178
- 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: b9ce6b302ee5a507e054299ea193dadf21546f9cb36c78235ae6d4da2eae7174; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:08:14.848Z.