ERA13LA194 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident during takeoff
From New Castle International Airport (VA85) to Mount Airy Surry County Airport (MWK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA194
- 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
- N92804
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Castle International Airport (VA85), New Castle, VATo Mount Airy Surry County Airport (MWK), Mount Airy, NC
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, before departure, he performed an engine run-up and then initiated takeoff from the 2,400-foot-long upsloping grass runway in accordance with soft-field takeoff procedures. The airplane was slow to produce speed; but, it lifted off the ground. Although the pilot attempted to fly in ground effect to produce more speed, he soon realized that he did not have enough speed or altitude to clear trees beyond the runway, so he maneuvered the airplane toward a clearing where he intended to land the airplane. However, the airplane then stalled, the left wing tip contacted the ground, and the airplane cart-wheeled. The pilot further reported that he should have recognized the "sluggish speed sooner and [aborted the] takeoff."
Examinations revealed that the magnetos were slightly out of timing and that both of the No. 2 cylinder's spark plugs contained lead and carbon deposits; however, it could not be determined how this affected engine power or whether these conditions would have been noticeable to the pilot during the engine run-up before departure or during the takeoff. Examinations revealed no anomalies that could have precluded normal operation. Postaccident performance calculations indicate that, based on the airplane's weight, the reported headwind component, and takeoff from a grass runway, the total distance to clear a 50-foot obstacle was 914 feet; therefore, the pilot should have been able to clear the trees.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff after recognizing that the airplane was not accelerating properly, which led to an aerodynamic stall. The reason for the lack of acceleration could not be determined because postaccident examinations did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA194
- Event ID
- 20130409X54955
- Case number
- ERA13LA194
- 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: c9cfdef341a350e9bf90fa6da95e385fa17b8a934472e529b99260b92ae89c85; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:15:21.940Z.