FTW91LA157 · Cessna 172K
Cessna 172K · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW91LA157
- 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 172K
- 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
- N7043G
- Operator
- Herbert D. Ziegenhorn · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft performance, takeoff capability › Exceeded
- Pilot in command › Performance data, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A 365 HOUR PRIVATE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO TAKEOFF FROM A 2,100 FOOT STRIP, UNDER A LIGHT WIND CONDITION AND A DENSITY ALTITUDE OF 2400 FEET. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD MADE SEVERAL FLIGHTS FROM THE SAME STRIP, UNDER SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE ROTATED THE AIRPLANE ABOUT THE SAME POINT THAT HE USUALLY ROTATED, AND THE AIRPLANE BECAME AIRBORNE BUT FAILED TO CLIMB OUT OF GROUND EFFECT. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED A LEVEE AT THE DEPARTURE END OF THE STRIP AND FLIPPED UPSIDE DOWN. THE PILOT DID NOT CONSULT THE AIRCRAFT PERFORMANCE DATA TO COMPUTE THE TAKEOFF DISTANCE. TAKEOFF DISTANCE TO CLEAR AN OBSTACLE WAS 2,311 FEET.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO USE THE AIRCRAFT PERFORMANCE DATA TO COMPUTE THE TAKEOFF DISTANCE. A FACTOR WAS THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW91LA157
- Event ID
- 20001212X17877
- Case number
- FTW91LA157
- 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: ba66e5bfac755cfca1ef710a1ecfc7563cc3391cb7a82c982b65aa9177dee66d; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:45:17.561Z.