FTW85LRD04 · Cessna A188B
Cessna A188B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW85LRD04
- 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 A188B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N731LX
- Operator
- Marcus Covington
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not obtained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT CONTACTED THE TERRAIN IN A COTTON FLD DURING AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT WHICH OCCURRED ON TAKEOFF. THE PLT WAS TEST FLYING THE ACFT IN ANTICIPATION OF POSSIBLY PURCHASING IT. THE PLT REPORTED THAT WHEN APRX 1/2 THE WAY DOWN THE RWY THE ACFT DID NOT APPEAR AS THOUGH IT WOULD CLEAR TREES AT THE END OF THE RWY. HE ELECTED TO CONTINUE THE TAKEOFF AND DUMP THE 110 GALLON LOAD OF WATER ON BOARD. UPON CROSSING THE END OF THE RWY AT AN ALT OF 10 TO 20 FT AGL, THE PLT INITIATED A TURN TO AVOID THE TREES. DURING THE TURN THE PLT INTENDED TO DUMP THE LOAD, BUT HE INADVERTANTLY DEPLOYED THE FLAPS. THE ACFT HEN SETTLED INTO THE COTTON FLD. THE ACFT OWNER STATED THE PLT WAS BRIEFED ON TAKEOFF DISTANCES AND THE ACFT PERFORMANCE, HOWEVER, HE FAILED TO USE ALL AVAILABLE RWY FOR THE TAKEOFF.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW85LRD04
- Event ID
- 20001214X37510
- Case number
- FTW85LRD04
- 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: 435edcff3e0b77564a1952478992c16a841458dcace57505c7b6473e6d232fe9; retrieved 2026-09-23T16:04:17.909Z.