NYC06FA071 · Cessna 172R
Cessna 172R · Accident: abrupt maneuver while maneuvering
From W66 · Warrenton, VA to Freeway Airport (W00)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06FA071
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172R
- 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
- N3536C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W66 · Warrenton, VATo Freeway Airport (W00), Mitchellville, MD
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane attempted two Global Positioning System instrument approaches to the destination airport in snow and fog, and descended 200 to 300 hundred feet below the minimum descent altitude of 700 feet each time. After the second approach, the airplane appeared out of the clouds over the south end of the runway, between 200 and 300 feet above the ground, and flew the length of the runway at low altitude. At the north end of the runway, the airplane turned west away from the airport, then circled to the right in a "dramatic" and "nose-high attitude" back towards the runway. The airplane overflew the runway headed south and turned west away from the airport, as engine power increased, and the flaps were retracted. The airplane then entered a steep left bank back towards the airport and "nose-dived" out of view. Seconds later, the sounds of impact were heard. Witnesses at the airport said the clouds were "on top of the trees" and that visibility was about 1/2 mile due to snow and fog. Examination of the wreckage revealed no mechanical deficiencies. Further examination of the airplane and its records revealed that the GPS database was expired, and that the airplane was above the manufacturer's maximum allowable gross weight.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper inflight planning/decision to attempt a landing in weather conditions below landing minimums, and his failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering. Factors in the accident were the fog and snow.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06FA071
- Event ID
- 20060303X00265
- Case number
- NYC06FA071
- 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: d6efa929991174be549958b70fa76663eaaae51bc026d58c0baa1f2f0ee3a5aa; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:31:43.972Z.