ATL91LA139 · Cessna 172P
Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Jackson County Airport (24A) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL91LA139
- 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 172P
- 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
- N52433
- Operator
- Civil Air Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson County Airport (24A), Sylva, NCTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND TWO OBSERVERS WERE ON A MISSION TO SEARCH FOR MARIJUANA PLANTS GROWING IN A MOUNTAINOUS CANYON. DURING SLOW FLIGHT, THEY ENCOUNTERED A DOWNDRAFT. THE AIRSPEED DECAYED, AND ESCAPE ROUTES FROM THE CANYON WERE NO LONGER AVAILABLE. THE PILOT SLOWED THE AIRCRAFT AND GUIDED IT INTO THE TREES. FOLLOWING THE COLLISION WITH TREES, THE AIRPLANE FELL TO THE GROUND BELOW. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE TEMPERATURE AT THE TIME WAS 92 DEGREES, AND THE AIRCRAFT WAS NEAR MAX GROSS WEIGHT. DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS ABOUT 6,000 FEET. INSPECTION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE, AND NO MECHANICAL PROBLEMS WERE REPORTED BY THE PILOT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN A PROPER ALTITUDE WHILE MANEUVERING IN THE CANYON. FACTOR(S) IN THIS ACCIDENT WERE: THE MOUNTAINOUS, BOX CANYON CONDITIONS, THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE, AND THE DOWNDRAFT CONDITIONS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL91LA139
- Event ID
- 20001212X17447
- Case number
- ATL91LA139
- 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: c68c5432c9357e646c4aa3f3f3d80f4ba4839c8939070627bd3b32c302e10683; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:54:40.347Z.