ATL05FA044 · Cessna T206H
Huntsville Flight Center Cessna T206H · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From Huntsville International Airport (KHSV) to Fulton County Airport Brown Field (KFTY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05FA044
- 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
- 2 · 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 T206H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N2467X
- Operator
- Huntsville Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Huntsville International Airport (KHSV)To Fulton County Airport Brown Field (KFTY), Atlanta, 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
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Weather condition › Thunderstorm
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot contacted the HSV clearance delivery controller at 1807:53 to obtain the flight's IFR clearance, and, at 1814:04, the pilot contacted the HSV ground controller and advised he was ready to taxi. The controller stated at 1814:31, "... there's level five weather activity that is south of the airport moving to the northeast so it's going to be crossing the runway south of the airport about three miles ... there's level five weather activity about two and a half miles south of the airport now." The pilot replied that he was ready to take off from runway 18L and requested vectors around the weather. At 1816:30, the local controller cleared the flight for takeoff from 18L and assigned the pilot a left turn to heading 090. The airplane departed, and no further radio contact was received from the flight. The airplane crashed into a swamp less than 1 nautical mile from the airport. A review of the NEXRAD Level-II radar imagery for HSV at 0016Z, base reflectivities of 50 decibels (dBZ) were in the immediate vicinity of the airport. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunction. According to FAA advisory circular AC-00-24b, "Thunderstorms," "VIP Level 5 is 'intense' with severe turbulence, lightning, hail likely, and organized surface wind gusts. ... Hazardous turbulence may extend as much as 20 miles from the echo edge ... ." AIM chapter 7-1-29, "Thunderstorm Flying," states, "Don't land or take off in the face of an approaching thunderstorm. A sudden gust front of low-level turbulence could cause loss of control."
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to attempt flight into known adverse weather, which resulted in an in-flight encounter with a thunderstorm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05FA044
- Event ID
- 20050119X00069
- Case number
- ATL05FA044
- 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 2005-01-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fa5e243e600a5a0db8fd8e14fe4b8c78256f9b99542cb2509adeeaa6bf31d846; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:08:50.371Z.