ATL82DA119 · Cessna A188
Cessna A188 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Columbus, MS to Columbus, MS
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL82DA119
- 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 A188
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N9557G
- Operator
- Floyd Lowery
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbus, MSTo Columbus, MS
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Ground personnel › Instructions, written/verbal, not attained
- Object › Animal(s)
- Pilot in command › Crew/group coordination, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD LANDED IN A FARMER'S FIELD TO RELOAD HIS SPRAYER TANK. BEFORE TAKEOFF, HE NOTICED SOME COWS HAD STRAYED ONTO THE STRIP. HE DIRECTED HIS LOADCREW ASSISTANT TO TAKE HIS TRUCK AND CLEAR THE COWS FROM THE STRIP. AFTER THE COWS WERE CLEARED, THE ASSISTANT PARKED THE TRUCK ABOUT 400 TO 600 FT FROM THE END OF THE STRIP. IT WAS FACING PERPENDICULAR TO THE DIRECTION OF TAKEOFF. AS THE PILOT STARTED HIS TAKEOFF, A COW RAN ACROSS THE STRIP FROM BEHIND THE TRUCK. FROM THAT POINT, THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO AVOID HITTING THE COW. THE RIGHT MAIN GEAR STRUCK THE COW AND THE PLANE VEERED TO THE RIGHT AND STRUCK THE FENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL82DA119
- Event ID
- 20020917X02718
- Case number
- ATL82DA119
- 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: 7cc91e91539a0d38e15d2900c07ce4ebccdaffff3c9bd7c0eb562baf9ce38ea7; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:19:02.974Z.