ERA14FA377 · Cessna 150 C
Cessna 150 C · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC during initial climb
From Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC) to Eagle Neck Airport (1GA0)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14FA377
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 150 C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N7968Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC), Peachtree City, GATo Eagle Neck Airport (1GA0), Shellman Bluff, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1963)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noninstrument-rated private pilot departed for a cross-country flight in night instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). No record was found indicating that the pilot obtained an official weather briefing before the flight. GPS data indicated that, about 5 minutes after takeoff, the airplane turned back toward the departure airport. About 2 minutes later, as the airplane was flying at an altitude just above the height of the surrounding terrain (about 823 ft), it made a slight descending left turn. The airplane continued to descend, impacted a berm on the side of a gravel road and then trees, and came to rest nose down.
Postaccident examination of the wreckage did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. A weather observation taken at the departure airport about the time of the accident included visibility of 6 statute miles with mist and an overcast ceiling at 600 ft above ground level (agl). A witness reported that visibility was restricted due to patchy areas of fog or mist and that the ceiling was about 300 to 400 ft agl. He added that "the sky was very dark" with little ambient light. Based on the GPS data, it is likely that the pilot was attempting to return to the airport and subsequently chose to attempt an off-airport landing due to the poor weather conditions.
Toxicological testing detected ibuprofen, lidocaine, oxycodone, oxymorphone, and salicylate in the pilot's urine. However, none of these medications were present in the pilot's blood at the time of the accident; therefore, impairment by the medications did not contribute to the accident. In addition, the testing revealed that the pilot had diabetes, which had not been previously diagnosed; however, it is unlikely that the pilot's diabetes contributed to the accident.
Review of the pilot's medical records revealed that he had received a spinal injection to treat ongoing low back pain radiating to his arms and legs the day before the accident. Although painful symptoms and these injections can cause complications, they do not affect decision-making. In this case, the noninstrument-rated pilot improperly decided to fly in IMC, which led to the accident. Therefore, neither the back pain nor the injection contributed to the accident.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot’s inadequate preflight weather planning and his improper decision to attempt a visual flight rules flight in night instrument metrological conditions, which resulted in subsequent collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14FA377
- Event ID
- 20140809X04729
- Case number
- ERA14FA377
- 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: 7989906354d18171fc858ea697ebe39756ed5623e5684bd0b13a8669615b6940; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:23:18.066Z.