ERA11CA450 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From Elkins-Randolph County Regional Airport (EKN) to Elkins-Randolph County Regional Airport (EKN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11CA450
- 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
- N5399Q
- Operator
- Michael D. Knopp · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elkins-Randolph County Regional Airport (EKN), Elkins, WVTo Elkins-Randolph County Regional Airport (EKN), Elkins, WV
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (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
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI) directed the student pilot to perform a touch-and-go landing. During climb out, the CFI informed the student they would be conducting some mountain flying and instructed him to climb straight ahead over a ridge line. Upon clearing the ridge line, the CFI directed the student to make a right turn into a canyon. After entering the canyon, the CFI realized he was in the wrong area and the airplane would be unable to clear the ridge line in front of them. He took control of the airplane and made a left turn towards the left side of the canyon. He then initiated a hard right turn and realized there was insufficient room to reverse course. He leveled the wings of the airplane and it collided with the trees. The airplane sustained substantial damage and came to rest on the side of the ridge. The CFI stated there were no mechanical problems with the airplane and he was unfamiliar with the geographic area.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's unfamiliarity with the geographic area, resulting in controlled flight into terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11CA450
- Event ID
- 20110814X54118
- Case number
- ERA11CA450
- 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: bd9da21107a86e69928619ad16a1480eec60e97e9b3e9d2ba241d3738bd23f04; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:36:17.802Z.