FTW86FA051 · Cessna 172N
Del Rio Flying Service Cessna 172N · Accident: abrupt maneuver while maneuvering
From Del Rio International Airport (DRT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW86FA051
- 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
- 4 · 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 172N
- 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
- N8423E
- Operator
- Del Rio Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Del Rio International Airport (DRT), Del Rio, TXTo 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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 › Altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Level off, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS DOING AEROBATIC MANEUVERS IN THE CESSNA 172 AIRPLANE WITH THREE PASSENGERS AND A HEAVY LOAD OF FUEL ABOARD. THE MANEUVERS CONSISTED OF BUZZING BOATS ON THE LAKE AT VERY LOW ALTITUDE, AT LEAST ONE COMPLETE AILERON ROLL, SEVERAL VERY ABRUPT PULL-UPS, SEVERAL VERY ABRUPT LEVEL-OFFS AT VERY LOW ALTITUDE, AND SEVERAL HAMMERHEAD TYPE TURNS. THE LAST MANEUVER, WHICH TERMINATED WITH THE ACCIDENT, WAS A STEEP PULLUP AND CLIMB FOLLOWED BY A HAMMERHEAD TURN AND A DELAYED PULLOUT AT THE BOTTOM WHICH RESULTED IN IMPACT WITH THE TERRAIN. THE AIRCRAFT WAS OPERATING IN THE UTILITY CATAGORY OF AIRWORTHINESS ON THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT. FOR THIS CATAGORY, AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT THE AIRCRAFT WAS 323 POUNDS OVER IT'S MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE GROSS WEIGHT AND 3.1 INCHES BEYOND IT'S ALLOWABLE AFT C.G. LIMIT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW86FA051
- Event ID
- 20001213X33055
- Case number
- FTW86FA051
- 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: acc096efa6946ea33935cd2649199209fee0c99e57fc522e803fe3c71d276198; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:37:28.549Z.