NYC85FFA01 · Cessna 172I
Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172I · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From NY84 · ESSEX, NY to NY84 · ESSEX, NY
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC85FFA01
- 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 172I
- 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
- N215NY
- Operator
- Civil Air Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From NY84 · ESSEX, NYTo NY84 · ESSEX, NY
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Miscellaneous eqpt/furnishings › Failure, partial
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vso), exceeded
- Pilot in command › Pull-up, excessive
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES STATED ACFT BECAME AIRBORNE NEAR THE SLIGHT RISE IN THE RWY, APRX 1500 FT DOWN THE RWY, AND CLIMBED TO APRX 60 FT AGL. ACFT SHUTTERED AND NOSE OF ACFT PITCHED UP. LEFT WING AND NOSE THEN DROPPED. ACFT CONTINUED DESCENDING TO THE LEFT ACROSS A SMALL RAVINE WHICH PARALLELED THE RWY, CRASHING INTO THE EASTERLY SIDE OF A RAVINE. INVESTIGATION REVEALED SEAT STOPS WERE NOT FOUND IN PLTS SEAT RAIL. STOP SCREW WAS FOUND ON CABIN FLOOR NEAR LOCATION OF HOLE PROVIDED FOR SEAT STOP IN INBOARD TRACK OF SEAT. 1/2 OF THE BROKEN SEAT STOP WAS FOUND IN THE LEFT CHANNEL OF THE RIGHT PLTS SEAT TRACK APRX 1 INCH FORWARD OF THE INSTALLATION HOLE. THE SEAT TRACK SURFACE WAS SCORED AND ALL HOLES IN THE TRACK WERE ELONGATED. THE SEAT ROLLERS WERE REPLACED IN 1979 DUE TO SLIPPAGE. ACFT CONTAINEDA SEAT SLIPPAGE WARNING PLACARD, 'INSURE AIRCRAFT SEATS ARE POSITIVELY LOCKED BEFORE TAKEOFF AND LANDING.'
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC85FFA01
- Event ID
- 20001214X41459
- Case number
- NYC85FFA01
- 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: 55e48b3d88f271b1f008fb0c52286d3e2979799b592806964a59b9159ef84197; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:26:06.809Z.