ATL05CA002 · Cessna 172K
Cessna 172K · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Sky Ranch Airport (TN98) to Sky Ranch Airport (TN98)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05CA002
- 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 172K
- 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
- N78211
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sky Ranch Airport (TN98), Knoxville, TNTo Sky Ranch Airport (TN98), Knoxville, TN
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None Narrative disagrees
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
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 pilot stated he was on initial take off climb and the airplane wanted to turn to the left. He put in a correction and the airplane started another turn to the left. He thought the airplane might collide with a hangar off the left side of the runway so he lowered the nose and applied aft pressure on the control yoke. The student pilot stated, "he could not remember anything after applying the rear pressure on the control yoke." When asked if he experienced any mechanical problems with the airplane or his seat, he stated no. A witness stated he observed an airplane on take off from the airport. The airplane was about 200 feet in a climb attitude. He estimated the nose of the airplane to be in a 30-degree nose high attitude and the airspeed was described as slow. The airplane made a hard turn to the left and the nose of the airplane pitched down. Examination of the airplane revealed the left wing tip was missing and the wing was bent up and aft. The upper and lower left wing skins were twisted and compressed, and the left inboard flap was wedged into the left side of the fuselage. The right wing was accelerated forward and the right wing tip was bent upward. The right flap was damaged and had collided with a hangar post. The flight controls were connected and continuity was confirmed between the flight controls and control surfaces. The engine and propeller assembly remained attached to the airframe and no anomalies were noted. The Cessna 172 Owner's Manual states at 2,300 pounds gross weight with the flaps at 10-degrees and a 20-degree angle of bank the airplane will stall at 54 calibrated airspeed (CAS.) With a 40-degree bank the airplane will stall at 59 CAS and with a 60-degree bank the airplane will stall at 74 CAS.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed on initial take off climb resulted in an inadvertent stall and an uncontrolled descent into the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05CA002
- Event ID
- 20041021X01667
- Case number
- ATL05CA002
- 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, damage. 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: 6b834eb6828203a5a7d41a1f0d225c8e9d5f64c0b71dd7a6cb0f3321c981d3ae; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:12:21.384Z.