CEN10LA126 · Cessna 172RG
Cessna 172RG · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From Capital City Airport (KCXY) to Clermont County Airport (I69)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA126
- 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 172RG
- 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
- N9771B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Capital City Airport (KCXY), Harrisburg, PATo Clermont County Airport (I69), Batavia, OH
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument rated pilot was in visual meteorological conditions above the clouds and requested a descent through the clouds under instrument flight rules (IFR). The air traffic controller asked if the pilot was qualified to operate in IFR conditions and the pilot responded that he was qualified. During the descent, the airplane accumulated ice. The pilot had been made aware of the possibility of icing conditions during two preflight briefings, an in-flight weather update, and by the controller who relayed pilot reports of ice accumulation. The airplane was not approved or equipped for flight in icing conditions. As the rate of ice accumulation increased, the pilot requested to divert to another airport. The controller issued radar vectors and subsequently cleared the pilot for an instrument approach to that airport. Later, the pilot communicated that he had the airport in sight and canceled his IFR clearance. The airplane subsequently impacted trees and the ground about 1/4 mile from the airport.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to initiate and continue the flight into known icing conditions with an airplane not properly equipped for flight into icing conditions which exceeded the capabilities of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA126
- Event ID
- 20100224X32811
- Case number
- CEN10LA126
- 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: e84b80f90215faf818a952fe37c56f40e7e08224960705d4a3f36451e3af5c26; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:42:11.993Z.