NYC08CA191 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Hensley Airpark (04TN) to Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08CA191
- 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 172M
- 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
- N74WC
- Operator
- Eugene H. Haskins · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Hensley Airpark (04TN), Chuckey, TNTo Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI), Blounitville, 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
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
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 of a Cessna 172M said that the preflight, runup, and initial takeoff roll on runway 1 "were normal." During the takeoff roll, the airplane veered left onto the grass, and the pilot's efforts to direct the airplane back onto the runway were "unsuccessful." The airplane crossed a taxiway perpendicular to the runway, and became airborne. It continued to drift left, and the left wing struck a tree at a point approximately 25 feet above the ground. The airplane then descended and impacted the ground. It came to rest upright, on a heading of approximately 245 degrees, in the grass on the west side of the runway. The pilot exited through his door, and tried unsuccessfully to put out a fire in the engine compartment, using the airplane's hand held fire extinguisher. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and engine compartment. Runway 1 was dry asphalt, and measured 3,000 feet long and 50 feet wide. The pilot reported the winds as "light and variable." The reported wind at an airport located approximately 22 miles northeast of the accident location, about the time of the accident, was winds from 280 degrees at 7 knots, direction variable from 260 to 330 degrees.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during the takeoff roll. Contributing to the accident was his failure to abort the takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08CA191
- Event ID
- 20080709X00993
- Case number
- NYC08CA191
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 18f3721c3bbcbef4186b0e4a859f758ed0acfb58da5aae2df2ca452585f2bf17; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:51:57.476Z.