ERA17LA158 · Cessna 172 UNDESIGNAT
Cessna 172 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: security/criminal event
From Spartanburg Downtown Memorial Airport (SPA) to Skyway Manor Airport (T79)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA158
- 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 172 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N8368B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spartanburg Downtown Memorial Airport (SPA), Spartanburg, SCTo Skyway Manor Airport (T79), Pearland, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1957)
- 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
- Other
- 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
- Security/criminal event
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On April 18, 2017, about 1350 eastern daylight time, a Cessna 172, N8368B, was substantially damaged when it impacted terrain in Euharlee, Georgia. The private pilot and passenger were seriously injured. The airplane was registered to PMG Project Management Group, and privately operated. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the flight, which was conducted under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. The flight departed from Spartanburg Downtown Memorial Airport (SPA), Spartanburg, South Carolina, and was destined for Skyway Manor Airport (T79), Pearland, Texas.
The investigation of this event is being conducted under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The NTSB provided requested technical assistance to the FBI, and any material generated by the NTSB is under the control of the FBI. The NTSB does not plan to issue a final report or open a public docket.
Probable cause
The NTSB did not determine the probable cause of this event and does not plan to issue a report or open a public docket. The investigation of this event is being conducted under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA158
- Event ID
- 20170418X44152
- Case number
- ERA17LA158
- 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: d653942ea2ca520f106a502e3719e707898aa68954922f9349ae4af85e9c4213; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:10:40.145Z.