ATL04LA167 · Cessna 172M
Triad Air Cessna 172M · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Smith Reynolds Airport (KINT) to Winston Salem, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA167
- 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 172M
- 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
- N71409
- Operator
- Triad Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Smith Reynolds Airport (KINT), Winston Salem, NCTo Winston Salem, 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- On ground/water 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
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 both pilots, after landing, the airplane was cleared to taxi to the north ramp. Both pilots stated that the CFI in the left seat took control of the airplane in order to position and park it. The pilot in control of the airplane at the time of the accident, CFI- left, stated, "while pushing the left rudder, [his] foot slipped down and off the [left] pedal." He stated that he then immediately "pushed full left rudder, but the right wing... hit one of the corner metal poles." The pilot not in control of the airplane at the time of the accident, CFI-right, stated that as the pilot in control "was beginning to set-up the aircraft's turn, his foot immediately slipped off of the rudder. This caused the aircraft's wing to hit a fence pole." Both pilots stated that the airplane was immediately shut down and assistance was sought. Post-accident examination of the airplane revealed that the right wing sustained leading edge spar damage and extensive skin buckling, and the right wing tip was crushed. The engine, landing gear, fuselage, and left wing were intact and undamaged. No mechanical problems with the airplane were reported by the pilot.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the fence post, while taxing which resulted in a collision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA167
- Event ID
- 20040830X01313
- Case number
- ATL04LA167
- 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: e53f0bc5d69ff6a60f59c2d87814a43031e3fbbaa521933b74f9f573cccab9e1; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:12:32.579Z.