ATL00LA060 · Cessna 172H
Cessna 172H · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From AL (private airstrip) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL00LA060
- 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 172H
- 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
- N2849L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AL (private airstrip)To 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 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
- Aircraft performance, climb capability › Exceeded
- Pilot in command › Performance data, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to performing touch and go landings on a 1,000 ft. private grass airstrip with trees at both ends of the runway, the pilot performed takeoff performance calculations and determined that 700 ft. of ground roll would be required without obstacles, and 1,200 ft. would be required for a 50-ft. obstacle clearance. During the pilot's first landing, he touched down 200 ft. from the runway threshold. He applied full power and did not retract the 40 degrees of flaps. During initial climb following takeoff, the airplane's landing gear clipped a line of trees. The airplane then collided with the ground nose first, coming to rest 500 ft. off the end of the runway. According to the 1967 Cessna 172H Airplane Flight Manual, flap settings of 30 to 40 degrees are not recommended at any time for takeoff. In addition, there is no performance data in the manual for takeoffs with 40 degrees of flaps.
Probable cause
The pilot exceeding the performance capability of the airplane during takeoff. A factor was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL00LA060
- Event ID
- 20001212X21155
- Case number
- ATL00LA060
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-06-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8f77f37d829c145a9df6528b9b091456e0687518f6321133c79d0bfb7dd2d6c0; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:38:20.586Z.