NYC06FA104 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK) to Unknown
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06FA104
- 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
Cessna 172L
- 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
- N7604G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), Frederick, MDTo Unknown
- 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
- 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 terrain/water
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
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 descended into an area between two converging mountain ridges known locally as "The Punchbowl," and impacted rising terrain in an almost-level attitude. Weather was clear at the time. There were no mechanical anomalies noted with either the airplane or the engine. The pilot had two previous, possible suicide attempts; however, the circumstances surrounding them were not present at the time of the accident. Family members also stated that the pilot was not depressed, and that he was actively involved in a new hobby. The pilot also had emphysema, with hypoxia at rest. The hypoxia would reasonably be expected to worsen at altitude. The pilot may have had problems with the control of impulsive behaviors, which could have been aggravated by a decreased blood-oxygen supply. The pilot had coronary artery disease; however, its extent would not necessarily have caused any symptoms. The possibility of sudden stroke, seizure, heart attack, or other incapacitating event could not be eliminated by the autopsy, and hypoxia could have increased the likelihood of their occurrence. Although undetermined what, if any, role the pilot's medical conditions played in the accident; it was possible that his psychiatric condition and/or his emphysema were factors.
Probable cause
An impact with mountainous terrain for an undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06FA104
- Event ID
- 20060514X00570
- Case number
- NYC06FA104
- 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: 46b3b74f046ec88b64e17f023a21bb4cbc5b52de9c68d1ebd7323e8e858c4c3f; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:22:45.773Z.