ATL89LA083 · Cessna 172D
Cessna 172D · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK) to 8A4 · Kennesaw, GA
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89LA083
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172D
- 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
- N2556U
- Operator
- E. Wayne Fredericks
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Chamblee, GATo 8A4 · Kennesaw, 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; Wire, transmission; 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, intentional
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Cumming, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD MADE A FLIGHT FROM HIS HOME AIRPORT TO AUGUSTA AND UPON RETURNING, HAD TO DIVERT DUE TO WEATHER. HE HAD DEPARTED AUGUSTA ABOUT 2315, LANDED AT PDK ABOUT 2400, AND OBTAINED A WEATHER BRIEFING FROM FSS ABOUT 0122. THE BRIEFER INDICATED THAT WEATHER CONDITIONS WERE IFR AND THE PILOT STATED THAT HE WAS 'INSTRUMENT' BUT THE PLANE WAS NOT (NO ATTITUDE INDICATOR). THE PILOT INDICATED THAT HE DEPARTED PDK FOR MCCOLLUM ABOUT 0245. AT 0306, ZTL RECORDED A CALL FROM THE PILOT THAT HE 'GOT INTO SOME SOUP AND WAS VFR'. HE INIDCATED THAT HE WAS NOT IFR QUALIFIED. AFTER SOME VECTORS, THE PILOT INDICATED THAT HE COULD SEE THE GROUND. HE WAS TURNED TOWARD PDK AT HIS REQUEST AND THEN RADIOED THAT HE WAS OUT OF FUEL. HE HAD INDICATED SUFFICIENT FUEL FOR 1 1/2 HOURS EARLIER IN THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS. TOTAL TIME FROM INITIAL RADIO CONTACT TO FUEL EXHAUSTION WAS ABOUT 32 MINUTES. DURING THE FORCED LANDING THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH A POWER LINE AND TREES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DECISION TO ATTEMPT VFR FLIGHT IN ADVERSE METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AT NIGHT WITH AN INOPERATIVE ATTITUDE INDICATOR AND INSUFFICIENT FUEL RESERVE FOR THE INTENDED FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89LA083
- Event ID
- 20001213X27541
- Case number
- ATL89LA083
- 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: 61b1fee78c7535e86c935c3212a4acd168af93521178811b61c92b618656029f; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:58:47.538Z.