ERA11FA369 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Dutchess County Airport (POU) to Dutchess County Airport (POU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11FA369
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N61579
- Operator
- Sean Bogart
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dutchess County Airport (POU), Poughkeepsie, NYTo Dutchess County Airport (POU), Poughkeepsie, NY
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was flying in the airport traffic pattern in good weather and was in radio and radar contact with air traffic control. While on short final approach, without warning or distress, the airplane descended nose-down and impacted a field about 1/4 mile before the runway threshold. Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Although the pilot’s autopsy report listed the cause of death as multiple blunt impact injuries, it also noted significant coronary artery disease with stenosis of 85 to 90 percent in one of the arteries.
Review of the pilot's personal medical records revealed that about 3 years before the accident, he was found to have paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and hypertension. Subsequent treatment with medications was unsuccessful, and 1 year before the accident, he underwent a procedure to ablate a foci initiating the abnormal heart rhythm. The procedure was initially successful with a return to normal sinus rhythm, but by 1 month before the accident, the atrial fibrillation recurred and medications were restarted. Toxicological testing confirmed the presence of medications used to treat high blood pressure, control the rate of atrial fibrillation, and thin the blood.
None of the cardiology or prescription medication information was reported to a Federal Aviation Administration aviation medical examiner during any of the pilot's applications for medical certificates. Had the pilot reported the atrial fibrillation, he would have been initially disqualified for a medical certificate. However, pilots with well controlled rates, who are mostly asymptomatic and without concomitant coronary artery disease, could be issued a special issuance medical certificate with appropriate follow-up. In the pilot’s case, such follow-up would have likely detected the undiagnosed coronary artery disease, which, in combination with the atrial fibrillation, put him at increased risk for sudden cardiac death. It was very likely that the pilot became impaired or incapacitated by his underlying cardiac disease during the accident flight.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of airplane control due to impairment or incapacitation as a result of coronary artery disease in combination with atrial fibrillation. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to report his paroxysmal atrial fibrillation to the Federal Aviation Administration, which would have required follow-up testing that would likely have detected his undiagnosed coronary artery disease.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11FA369
- Event ID
- 20110628X34613
- Case number
- ERA11FA369
- 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. 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: 7f6c3ffa4d8677cbbbe6171686ae8062ecf87e2b5228cf72daeca12b8a6b87dc; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:29:26.588Z.