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Atlas / NTSB / CHI82FEX05

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CHI82FEX05

1981-12-26 PAOLI, Indiana, United States Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N5072A

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 172

Engine

CONT MOTOR 0-300 SER (145 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19551112

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A65690

Registrant of record

GIBBS JAMES P

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

CESSNA 172 · N5072A

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

Takeoff — initial climb (C1)

Operator type

D

Airport

PAOLI MUNI

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

BROKEN/LOWER SCATTERED

Temp

32° F

Aircraft history

Serial number

000000038072

Total time

3,280 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

146

Age

26

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

800FT.PLT THOUGHT TWY WAS EXTN OF RWY.29LBS OVR WT

Investigator remarks

UN TO CLR TREES DRG TKOF FM TWY,TKOF DIST 1600-1

Cause factors

  • 64/A/35 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND SELECTED UNSUITABLE TERRAIN Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/J/29 J
    PILOT IN COMMAND INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PREPARATION AND/OR PLANNING Joint cause
  • 88/J/76 J
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS IMPROPERLY LOADED AIRCRAFT-WEIGHT-AND/OR C.G. Joint cause

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 3385. Source file NTSB_1981_3_3385.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗