NYC01LA213 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Davidsville, PA (no airport) to John Murtha Johnstown Cambria County Airport (JST)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA213
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N30247
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Davidsville, PA (no airport)To John Murtha Johnstown Cambria County Airport (JST), Johnstown, PA
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot attempted a takeoff from a field. After a takeoff roll of about 900 feet on cut grass, the pilot turned the airplane to the right to avoid having the left wing pass over corn. The airplane entered an area of patchy clover and higher grass, and would not accelerate. As the airplane approached power lines ahead, the pilot turned it another 30 degrees to the right, and continued with the takeoff roll. The airplane went through a the fence, dragging a part of it on the landing gear, then went through trees where the wings were sheared off. The airplane came to rest inverted. The takeoff attempt was made with the wing flaps retracted. However, the manufacturer recommended the use of 1/4 flaps for soft field or maximum performance takeoffs. In addition, the magneto switch was found in the left magneto position, and the condition of the spark plugs was consistent with engine operation in that position.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff attempt. Factors included the pilot's failure to use both magnetos, and his failure to utilize soft field takeoff procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA213
- Event ID
- 20010828X01791
- Case number
- NYC01LA213
- 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: 739ae8b7b4aaf148565e4112f908a6b16ca25eec6fea06c38babc3d762d72c10; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:51:54.814Z.