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Atlas / NTSB / FTW73FPD18

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event FTW73FPD18

1973-01-13 DENTON, Texas, United States Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N5518E

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA A185F

Year of manufacture

1979

Engine

CONT MOTOR IO 520 SERIES (285 hp)

Seats / Engines

6 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19800115

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A70697

Registrant of record

ROMEO CHARLEY LLC

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 150 · N5518E

Damage

Substantial

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dusk

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

D1

Operator type

D

Airport

DENTON MUNI

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

CLEAR

Aircraft history

Serial number

000000017018

Pilot

Certificate

Airline transport

Total hours

76

Age

33

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

OR RPRTD PLT & PAX UNDER INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL.

Investigator remarks

NO PREV C-150 OR NITE TIME.POLICE,ATTENDING DOCT

Cause factors

  • 64/C/02 C
    PILOT IN COMMAND ATTEMPTED OPERATION BEYOND EXPERIENCE/ABILITY LEVEL Cause
  • 64/C/31 C
    PILOT IN COMMAND LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH AIRCRAFT Cause
  • 64/C/32 C
    PILOT IN COMMAND MISMANAGEMENT OF FUEL Cause
  • 88/C/63 C
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS FUEL EXHAUSTION Cause
  • 83/B/I B
    TERRAIN HIGH OBSTRUCTIONS
  • 64/L/65 L
    PILOT IN COMMAND PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT
  • 88/L/67 L
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS ALCOHOLIC IMPAIRMENT OF EFFICIENCY AND JUDGMENT

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 0702. Source file NTSB_1973_3_0702.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 ↗