CEN20TA088 · Cessna 170 Undesignat
Cessna 170 Undesignat · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From High Point Airport (3KS5) to High Point Airport (3KS5)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20TA088
- 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 170 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N170RH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From High Point Airport (3KS5), Valley Center, KSTo High Point Airport (3KS5), Valley Center, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 73 years (built 1947)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that with about 500 ft of the 2,200-ft runway remaining, the airplane was traveling about 60 mph; the liftoff speed is 60 to 65 mph. He considered aborting the takeoff but determined that it was not safe due to the road that ran perpendicular to the end of the runway. As the pilot rotated the airplane, it abruptly pitched up, began sinking, and did not accelerate, so he elected to land straight ahead in an open field. After touchdown, the right landing gear broke and the spring leg dug into the ground. The airplane subsequently rotated about the leg, and the fuselage sustained substantial damage. The pilot had conducted a preflight inspection of the airplane and determined the weight and balance of the airplane was within the manufacturer's limits. He estimated that the takeoff ground run distance was about 1,400 ft, which was about 70% more than the owner's manual recommended. Thus, it is likely that, although sufficient runway was available for takeoff, the airplane did not accelerate sufficiently to sustain flight. Further, the pilot failed to recognize that the airplane wasn’t accelerating and did not abort the takeoff when the airplane passed the point where he had anticipated the liftoff would occur.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed decision to abort the takeoff when the airplane passed the point where he had anticipated the liftoff would occur.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20TA088
- Event ID
- 20200218X92852
- Case number
- CEN20TA088
- 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: 67472604b6a9c713c247159a527e84561144736df5ab4a44b2644284ec76978d; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:08:21.637Z.