ATL06CA112 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From Griffin Spalding County Airport (6A2) to Seven Lakes Airport (62GA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06CA112
- 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 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N4556C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Griffin Spalding County Airport (6A2), Griffin, GATo Seven Lakes Airport (62GA), Jackson, 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
- 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
- Weather condition › Gusts
- Weather condition › Sudden windshift
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 applied aft pressure on the control yoke upon reaching 55 mph on the takeoff roll and the airplane became airborne. The airplane immediately veered to the left and the pilot applied right rudder and aileron. The pilot stated that he encountered a strong wind gust from the right. Another wind gust hit the airplane, and the pilot lost directional control of the airplane. The airplane cart wheeled to the left and came to rest inverted. A weather study completed by the NTSB revealed a low pressure system approaching the Alabama-Georgia border with a stationary front extending eastward across Georgia, in the vicinity of the accident site. Scattered thunderstorms and rain showers were developing along the front. The satellite image indicated a developing cumulonimbus clouds over the accident site, indicating thunderstorms were in the immediate vicinity of the airport at the time of the accident. The weather radar radial velocity image supports a wind shift in the immediate vicinity of the accident site with wind values less than 20 knots between the boundary. No defined microburst signature were noted in the vicinity of the accident site, but a wind analysis supported a gust front or outflow boundary.
Probable cause
An in-flight encounter with weather on initial take off climb resulting in a loss of directional control and collision with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06CA112
- Event ID
- 20060809X01121
- Case number
- ATL06CA112
- 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: fac3cbbdd4740f4ce125cd2b39899bd9adbec770ee8dbb10c28040a3553d0af3; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:38:55.461Z.