ATL87LA237 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: on ground/water encounter with weather during landing
From Jacksonville, AL to Gadsden, AL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87LA237
- 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 172
- 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
- N733DQ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacksonville, ALTo Gadsden, AL
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- On ground/water encounter with weather
- 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 › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT DEPARTED JACKSONVILLE IN VFR CONDS WITHOUT OBTAINING A WX BRIEFING. WHILE EN ROUTE, SHE OBSERVED THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY & ELECTED TO RETURN TO JACKSONVILLE. BY THE TIME SHE RETURNED, THE WX HAD DETERIORATED & THE WIND HAD SHIFTED TO THE SOUTH. THE WIND VELOCITY WAS ESTIMATED TO BE ABOUT 20 KTS SINCE THE WIND SOCK WAS FULLY EXTENDED. DRG A LANDING ON RWY 27, THE ACFT BOUNCED & THE PLT LOST DIRECTIONAL CONTROL. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT HIT A DITCH & WAS DAMAGED. THE PLT OPERG HANDBOOK STATED THAT WITH AVERAGE PLT TECHNIQUE, A DIRECT X-WIND OF 15 KTS COULD BE HANDLED WITH SAFETY. THE PLT EXTIMATED THE WIND WAS GUSTING TO 30 KTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87LA237
- Event ID
- 20001213X31717
- Case number
- ATL87LA237
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 4f6ebfca3fa806c05edf25f47a63e1cd9ca95d9e127d5b10a117fe75f9c52b14; retrieved 2026-09-23T12:21:44.576Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states "THE PLT DEPARTED JACKSONVILLE IN VFR CONDS" and returned there, the accident site at Jacksonville, AL; the departure was not recorded.