ATL84FA038 · Cessna T210M
Cessna T210M · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From 5A7 · Banner Elk, NC to AWO · Auburn, AL
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL84FA038
- 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
- 5 · 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 T210M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N761VK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 5A7 · Banner Elk, NCTo AWO · Auburn, 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
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None Narrative disagrees
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE TAKEOFF, THE PLT OBTAINED WX FOR ASHVILLE & HICKORY, NC & FOR THE TRI-CITY ARPT, ALL OF WHICH WERE 30 TO 54 MI FROM BANNER ELK, NC. AT THAT TIME, HE TOLD THE BRIEFER THAT THERE WERE CLOUDS AT BANNER ELK, BUT HE THOUGHT HE COULD GET OUT ALL RIGHT. THE ACFT DEPARTED TO THE NORTHWEST, BUT CRASHED A SHORT TIME LATER, ABOUT 1/2 MI WEST FROM THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RWY. IMPACT OCCURRED ON DOWNHILL TERRAIN WHILE IN A STEEP DIVE ON A HEADING OF 160 DEG. ELEVATION OF THE CRASH SITE WAS ESTIMATED TO BE 3833 FT. SOME WITNESSES STATED THAT THE ENG SURGED 2 OR 3 TIMES, THEN SPEEDED UP & WAS RUNNING AT IMPACT. ANOTHER WITNESS, A STUDENT PLT, STATED THAT THE ENG SOUNDED NORMAL THRU-OUT THE FLT. ALL WITNESSES AGREED THAT THE ACFT WAS IN THE CLOUDS PRIOR TO THE CRASH. ACCORDING TO AN NTSB WX STUDY, THE CLOUD BASES WOULD HAVE BEEN AT ABOUT THE 4000 FT LEVEL. WITNESSES STATED THAT AN OVERCAST WAS APRX 'HALFWAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN,' OBSCURING THE PEAKS. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. STUDENT PLT NOT ENDORSED FOR X-COUNTRY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL84FA038
- Event ID
- 20001214X44981
- Case number
- ATL84FA038
- 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, damage. 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: b63acc68eec9b85b4f3b3426b8d1a293d6fc1ecfff599952dcd524af4a988725; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:56:23.697Z.