NYC04FA137 · Cessna 182C
Kutztown Airport Cessna 182C · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From N31 · Kutztown, PA to N31
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04FA137
- 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
- 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 182C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N8681T
- Operator
- Kutztown Airport
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From N31 · Kutztown, PATo N31
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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 in flight
- 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)
- 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 › Climb, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student glider pilot was being towed by the accident tow plane for a local flight. Shortly after takeoff, the student glider pilot noticed that the tow rope had "some slack" in it, and that the tow plane did not appear to be climbing "at the rate he should have been." The student glider pilot made slight control adjustments to tighten the tow rope; however, the tow rope "went slack" again at 200-300 feet above the ground, and the airplane began to descend below the glider. The glider pilot then decided to release from the tow plane, and he turned back to the airport. During the turn, he observed the airplane drop its left wing slightly, and then begin a turn to the right. The airplane then impacted a quarry, and a post-crash fire ensued. Examination of the airplane and engine revealed no pre-flight mechanical deficiencies. During a previous training flight with the student glider pilot and accident tow pilot, the airplane began to descend during a climb, when the tow pilot failed to realize that the throttle had vibrated back to a lower power setting when he took his hand off it. According to the operator of the airplane, the tow pilot had performed approximately 70 tows during the past year; however, he had been "signed off" to fly without an instructor less than a month prior to the accident. The student glider pilot had accumulated approximately 50 hours of total flight experience. The FAA Glider Flying Handbook, states in part that "One of the most dangerous occurrences during the aerotow is allowing the glider to rise high above and losing sight of the towplane. The tension on the towrope by the glider pulls the towplane tail up, lowering its nose. If the glider continues to rise pulling the towplane tail higher, the towpilot may not be able to raise the nose. Ultimately, the towpilot may run out of up elevator authority. This situation can be critical if it occurs at altitudes below 500 feet AGL. Upon losing sight of the towplane, the glider pilot must release immediately."
Probable cause
The towplane pilot's failure to maintain a climb while towing a glider for undetermined reasons, which resulted in the early release of the glider and the tow plane's subsequent impact with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04FA137
- Event ID
- 20040609X00775
- Case number
- NYC04FA137
- 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: 6d2932c04e5724aa95d9a0ec611ed287e73ee9dfe1ce442314076f877623b8cf; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:27:33.706Z.