DFW08LA217 · Cessna 172A
Cessna 172A · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) on approach
From Tucson, AZ to Double Eagle II Airport (KAEG)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08LA217
- 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 172A
- 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
- N6539B
- Operator
- Martin M. Nedza · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucson, AZTo Double Eagle II Airport (KAEG), Albuquerque, NM
- 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
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness at the airport observed the airplane at a very low altitude on final approach. The right wing of the airplane collided with a pole on final approach resulting in a loss of control. The airplane came to rest about 100-feet short of the approach end of the runway. The FAA inspector, who traveled to the accident site following the mishap, confirmed flight and engine control continuity was established at the accident site. No anomalies were found with the engine or airframe that could have prevented normal flight operations. The passenger, who occupied the right front seat of the airplane, was a rated pilot; however, he had not flown for over 8 years and was not current. He stated that he was not aware that the pilot was not a rated pilot. Despite several attempts, the non-certificated pilot, or the owner of the airplane, failed to return a completed NTSB Form 6120.1 to the requesting investigator-in-charge. The pilot reported to the FAA inspector that the airplane was owned by his son and he had accumulated a total of 38 flight hours on the accident airplane. The field elevation was 5,837 feet MSL. The investigator in charge calculated the density altitude to be 7618 feet at the time of the landing. The winds at the airport were reported as calm at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain proper glide angle during the landing approach which resulted in a collision with a pole. Contributing to the accident were the pilot's lack of qualification, experience and the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08LA217
- Event ID
- 20081007X93827
- Case number
- DFW08LA217
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: b6981c323cf8d809dd200d5a27f163e734cb65ded79529f87fd1a2e04054c2fb; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:25:59.152Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. Misspelled city name; the Arizona city is Tucson.