ERA22LA006 · Cessna 172K
Ocala Aviation Services Cessna 172K · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Ocala International Airport - Jim Taylor Field (OCF) to Williston Municipal Airport (X60)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA006
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 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
- N78604
- Operator
- Ocala Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ocala International Airport - Jim Taylor Field (OCF), Ocala, FLTo Williston Municipal Airport (X60), Williston, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 53 years (built 1968)
- 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a night instructional flight, the flight instructor simulated an engine failure while on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern. As the airplane approached the runway with the landing light off, the flight instructor noticed that they were low on the approach. When the instructor asked the student if the landing light was on, the student pilot promptly answered “no” and turned it on. The airplane struck trees at the same moment, which resulted in substantial damage to the wings and tail. A review of meteorological and astronomical data revealed there was a broken cloud layer at 6,000 feet above ground level and the phase of the moon was a waning crescent with 1% of the Moon’s visible disk illuminated. Further review indicated that the Moon had set about 1 hour and 43 minutes prior to the accident. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from terrain on approach which resulted in controlled flight into trees. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor’s inadequate supervision of the approach path, the dark night conditions and the landing light being off.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA006
- Event ID
- 20211007104071
- Case number
- ERA22LA006
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-10-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 12a20eb94e31812c59615e7fb1ef4a871f08855a379382b55989d107ed9166b3; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:38:41.910Z.