ATL01LA023 · Cessna 172SP
Fulton Flight Services Cessna 172SP · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field) (CHA) to Fulton County Airport Brown Field (FTY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL01LA023
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 172SP
- 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
- N43PD
- Operator
- Fulton Flight Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field) (CHA), Chattanooga, TNTo Fulton County Airport Brown Field (FTY), Austell, GA
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, disregarded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the CFI , he and his dual student were conducting instrument training. Upon establishing radio contact with approach control, the pilots were given current weather, and they were told that the glide slope for runway 8 was inoperative. While on a two mile final approach, the pilot reported that, the vertical speed indicator (VSI) abruptly showed a climb and then a descent while airspeed increased. The pilot selected the alternate static source and initiated a go-around. The airplane collided with trees two miles west of the airport. Weather minimums for the ILS rwy 8 (S-LOC ) are 800 feet with 3/4 mile visibility. The recorded weather at the airport at the time of the accident was 300 feet overcast with 2 miles visibility. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the pitot static system sustained impact and fire damage. The wreckage examination also revealed that the engine had also sustained fire damage.
Probable cause
The pilots failure to follow instrument flight procedures and descended below the published the minimum descent altitude and subsequently collided with trees short of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL01LA023
- Event ID
- 20010122X00335
- Case number
- ATL01LA023
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-01-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f7b12a808d8ec48a2618cdcffa4c9e5e2a5c3a4b91bd50850bde246185ee7e2e; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:14:34.293Z.