ATL05LA113 · Mize Donald Kolb MK III X
Mize Donald Kolb MK III X · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Dickson County Municipal Airport (M02) to Dickson County Municipal Airport (M02)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05LA113
- 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
Mize Donald Kolb MK III X
- Aircraft type
- Mize Donald KOLB MK
- 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
- N194DM
- Operator
- Donald J Mize · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dickson County Municipal Airport (M02), Dickson, TNTo Dickson County Municipal Airport (M02), Dickson, 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
- 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
- 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
- Object › Tree(s)
- Pilot in command › Clearance, 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 a witness on the ground, this was the first flight of the experimental airplane. The pilot had just completed a series of high-speed taxis, and prepared for the initial flight. The airplane climbed out from runway 35, made a steep bank to the right, and the right wing collided with a tree. The airplane was located in a field approximately 100 yards off the right side of runway 35. No reported flight control or mechanical anomalies were reported by the pilot prior to the accident. Post accident examination of the experimental airplane revealed that the cockpit section was post fire damaged. Flight controls in the cockpit section were fire damaged. The aileron push pull tubes were traced from the aileron attachment points to the fire damaged controls in the cockpit. The rudder and elevators were attached to the horizontal and vertical stabilizers. The elevator and rudder control cables were traced from the attachment points to the fire damaged controls in the cockpit. Post accident examination of the engine revealed valve train continuity was established. External components on the engine were fire damaged. No mechanical or flight control anomalies were noted at the completion of the airframe and engine examination.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate obstacle clearance during climb out which resulted in the in-flight collision with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05LA113
- Event ID
- 20050708X00960
- Case number
- ATL05LA113
- 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: d198b125b534c40b0f7007a2b059221a77511f431b1b7ff746a69f03648cf069; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:00:20.509Z.