ATL83FKM01 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Vidalia Regional Airport (VDI) to Statesville Regional Airport (SVH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83FKM01
- 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
- 1 · 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 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
- N53460
- Operator
- Harry Vester Boone, JR
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vidalia Regional Airport (VDI), Vidalia, GATo Statesville Regional Airport (SVH), Statesville, NC
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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); 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT CRASHED INTO TREES 6 MILES EAST OF MAIDEN, NC IN DETERIORATING WEATHER. WITNESSES DESCRIBED THE WEATHER AS RAINY AND FOGGY IN THE AREA OF CRASH. SOME HEARD THE AIRCRAFT FLYING LOW BEFORE COLLIDING WITH TREES. THE PILOT WAS OFF COURSE FOR STATESVILLE EVEN AFTER BEING GIVEN A HEADING STEER BY HICKORY, NC. WHEN HE DID NOT FOLLOW THE COURSE TO STATESVILLE, THE HICKORY RADIO OPERATORS TRIED TO STEER HIM TO HICKORY ON A HEADING OF 305 DEGREES. HE SAID HE WAS ESTABLISHED ON THIS HEADING. THIS WAS AT 2003. NO FURTHER TRANSMISSIONS FROM N53460 WERE RECEIVED. ABOUT 22 MI NORTHWEST AT HICKORY, NC, THE WEATHER WAS REPORTED AS 2000 FT OVC, 7 MI VIS WITH FOG. A LOCAL RESIDENT STATED THAT IT WAS RAINING, FOGGY AND DARK AT THE ACCIDENT SITE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83FKM01
- Event ID
- 20020917X04328
- Case number
- ATL83FKM01
- 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: 52ca211a0b144a22fbeaa57ef06bb33ff8008019b49a0268464665bc5f2753e6; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:28:02.935Z.