ERA13FA062 · Cessna 172K
Cessna 172K · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Causey Airport (2A5) to Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13FA062
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172K
- 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
- N78304
- Operator
- David E. Wentz · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Causey Airport (2A5), Liberty, NCTo Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GA
- 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 · IFR final approach
- 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 › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was attempting an instrument landing system approach to a northbound runway in night, instrument meteorological conditions. The air traffic controller issued a series of radar vectors to the pilot to guide him to the localizer course. However, after the controller cleared the pilot to intercept the localizer, the airplane instead continued across the localizer course. The pilot initiated a 270-degree turn to the south, crossed the localizer course, and then turned back toward the localizer course again. The controller observed that the airplane was in a descent and queried the pilot on his altitude. The pilot replied that he was "…trying to recover." Radio and radar contact were then lost and search and rescue operations were initiated.
The airplane was located in a salt marsh south of the destination airport and appeared to have been in a right, descending spiral when it impacted the marshy terrain. The wreckage was extremely fragmented. An examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of a preimpact mechanical anomaly or failure that would have precluded normal operation. Propeller signatures indicated high engine power at impact.
The pilot received his instrument rating about 6 months before the accident, at which time he reported about 189 hours of total flight time, including about 43 hours of instrument and 21 hours of night pilot-in-command flight time. Based on the night, instrument meteorological conditions, the pilot's actions and responses during the flight, and examination of the wreckage, it is likely that the pilot experienced spatial disorientation and lost control of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control while operating in night, instrument meteorological conditions, due to spatial disorientation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13FA062
- Event ID
- 20121119X04932
- Case number
- ERA13FA062
- 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: 21fc6a080153d7a984678944306402347414a54063a20ed10060eb4b2abe0071; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:48:25.453Z.