ATL04LA140 · Cessna 172S
Cessna 172S · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From K22 · Prestonsburg, KY to Thomson-McDuffie County Airport (HQU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA140
- 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 172S
- 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
- N2116P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From K22 · Prestonsburg, KYTo Thomson-McDuffie County Airport (HQU), Thomson, GA
- 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 · descent
- 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)
- 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(cfi) › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Visual lookout, 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
According to the certified flight instructor, the student pilot was flying the airplane. He stated that, before the departure, they reviewed the weather data on the weather computer for the dark night flight. He stated that they climbed to 7500 feet and stayed there for about an hour using the moving map display for navigation, and the multifunctional display for terrain avoidance. He said the ceiling began to drop and to stay clear of clouds they adjusted their altitude to 5500 feet to maintain visual flight. The ceiling dropped some more and they adjusted their altitude to 4000 feet. The CFI and the student then descended to 3500 feet and according to the CFI, immediately upon reaching 3500 feet, the airplane began colliding with tree tops. He said they collided with trees in a level attitude.
Probable cause
The CFII's inadequate visual lookout and failure to maintain clear of objects during flight. Factors were clouds and dark night.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA140
- Event ID
- 20040629X00883
- Case number
- ATL04LA140
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-06-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0f9e29a4576f83cd4f80bfed43ee5c57aa4fc558653adf8b675ea7bd7f4a1d62; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:15:58.449Z.