ATL02LA073 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Roscoe Field (82J) to 82J
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02LA073
- 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 172P
- 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
- N64079
- Operator
- Anbrey P. Mathis · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roscoe Field (82J), Pensacola, FLTo 82J
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been conducting a pleasure flight, which included closed traffic at the private airport. The pilot had attempted several approaches to runway 18 without landing. However, according to the fixed based operator, several failed attempts were made to establish radio contact over the UNICOM frequency with the pilot of the accident airplane. The fixed base operator was concerned about the pilot attempting a landing with a tailwind. The pilot stated that after the second approach and go-around to runway 18 he discovered that the prevailing winds had shifted and favored runway 36. Witnesses saw the airplane on the accident approach to runway 18, and again the pilot appeared to execute a go-around, however, another pilot taxing for takeoff, saw the airplane bounced on the runway, turned to the northwest, touched down on the ground again and collided with a tree. Examination of the airplane revealed that the left and right wing assemblies were damaged and the fuselage also sustained structural damage. The pilot did not report a mechanical problem with the airplane prior to the accident. The prevailing winds were 330 degrees at 12 knots at the approximate time of the attempted landing.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for a crosswind and his failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to land with a tailwind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02LA073
- Event ID
- 20020412X00509
- Case number
- ATL02LA073
- 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, coordinates. 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: d98a9fb0773b8e035cf06a6561f778ad6cbd846c9c413ec29396c01bb59e2f0b; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:01:46.685Z.