ATL91LA100 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Southwest Georgia Regional Airport (ABY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL91LA100
- 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 177B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N19823
- Operator
- Young, Roy M · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Southwest Georgia Regional Airport (ABY), Albany, GA
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
- Pilot in command › Removal of control/gust lock(s), not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Huntsville, AL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT AFTER SHUTDOWN A BOLT WAS USED AS A FLIGHT CONTROL LOCK ON THE YOKE. IT WAS NOT FLAGGED. THE FLAGGED CONTROL LOCK PIN HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN MISPLACED. WHEN HE RETURNED TO THE AIRPLANE ON MONDAY HE FAILED TO REMOVE THE BOLT DURING THE PREFLIGHT INSPECTION. HE TAXIED TO THE RUNUP AREA & NOTED THE ATTITUDE INDICATOR HAD NOT ERECTED. HE SKIPPED TO THE ENGINE RUNUP ON THE CHECKLIST & FAILED TO CHECK THE FLIGHT CONTROLS. DURING THE TAKEOFF THE BOLT WAS REMEMBERED. HE TRIED TO REMOVE THE BOLT, THE ACFT LIFTED OFF, HE RETARDED THE THROTTLE. THE NOSE PITCHED DOWN & THE AIRPLANE HIT THE RWY NOSE GEAR FIRST.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO REMOVE THE CONTROL LOCK PRIOR TO ATTEMPTING FLIGHT AND HIS FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE 'BEFORE TAKEOFF' CHECKLIST. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S DIVERTED ATTENTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL91LA100
- Event ID
- 20001212X16919
- Case number
- ATL91LA100
- 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: beac31880622a0887c55af0bef0c5f2b7cb0b2931d70542d7f162a87d59b850d; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:09:12.898Z.