ATL07CA117 · Cessna 172K
Wilgrove Aviation Cessna 172K · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From K73J · Beaufort, SC to K8A6 · Charlotte, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07CA117
- 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 172K
- 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
- N7410G
- Operator
- Wilgrove Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From K73J · Beaufort, SCTo K8A6 · Charlotte, NC
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, 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
The pilot suffered a concussion and reported he has no recall of the events associated with the accident. The pilot rated passenger stated the pilot entered left downwind for the runway and in his opinion the airplane was high and fast when the pilot turned the airplane on to final approach. The pilot initiated a slip to the left to lose altitude and the airplane was crabbing to the left. The left wing of the airplane collided with a tree about 10-feet in the air and the airplane came to rest on the ground left of the runway. The passenger stated the airplane did not experienced a mechanical malfunction during the approach for landing. The airplane sustained structural damage to both wings and the airframe. The flaps were found in the full down position.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control while landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07CA117
- Event ID
- 20070918X01408
- Case number
- ATL07CA117
- 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: ec69579493ce65755a9040aa322c84f96af28f075e517bed52363944f51266ab; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:25:13.146Z.