WPR11FA382 · Cessna P210N
Cessna P210N · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Burley Municipal Airport (KBYI) to Provo Municipal Airport (KPVU)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11FA382
- 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
- 4 · 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 P210N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N7825K
- Operator
- Whittle Randal
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Burley Municipal Airport (KBYI), Burley, IDTo Provo Municipal Airport (KPVU), Provo, UT
- 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 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 › Action/decision
- 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
Witnesses reported that during the takeoff, the airplane lifted off about three-quarters of the way down the runway. The landing gear was retracted and almost immediately, about 75 feet above ground level, the airplane entered a left turn and began to descend. The left descending turn continued to ground impact. On the day of the accident, the airplane was operating in high density altitude conditions, and was taking off with a tailwind of about 6 to 10 knots. The airplane was loaded at, or very near to, its maximum allowable takeoff weight. (The takeoff weight was estimated to be within 50 pounds, plus or minus, of its maximum takeoff gross weight of 4,000 pounds.) The combination of the high density altitude, the tailwind, and the high gross weight most likely resulted in the pilot not being able to maintain altitude once the vertical component of the lift vector was reduced as a result of the bank angle during the left turns, which ultimately lead to the descent into the terrain. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of a mechanical malfunction or failure that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain sufficient altitude and maintain aircraft control during a turn shortly after liftoff while operating at maximum gross weight, with a tailwind, and in high density altitude conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11FA382
- Event ID
- 20110815X10520
- Case number
- WPR11FA382
- 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: ae5e997ce7912e505563692fca2d4045731c44b5cb0185829e5d073bf6bd4a97; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:42:30.980Z.