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NYC03LA123 · Cessna R172K

6 Jun 2003 · Warrenton, VA, United States

Cessna R172K · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing

From W66 · Warrenton, VA to W66

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Event

NTSB case
NYC03LA123
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 R172K

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
N736AT
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From W66 · Warrenton, VATo W66
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 · flare/touchdown
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

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

While landing on runway 32, as the right wheel touched down, and the left wheel began to settle, the airplane veered to the left. The pilot added full throttle and attempted to abort the landing, but the airplane continued into tall grass at the edge of the runway, and nosed over. The airplane came to rest inverted, in a ditch. The winds reported at an airport located approximately 12 miles northeast of the accident site reported winds from 310 degrees at 10 knots with 14 knots of gust. A wind shift was reported about 9 minutes prior to the accident.

Probable cause

The pilot's inadequate compensation the shifting wind conditions, and his failure to maintain directional control. A factor related to the accident was the shifting wind conditions.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC03LA123
Event ID
20030610X00843
Case number
NYC03LA123
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: 312002c8cc15e7ae9092d58afbb5ab4bdc6e684ba38a29169666703a528cf064; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:12:06.715Z.