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NYC94LA181 · Cessna 172P

20 Sept 1994 · Sterling, MA, United States

Cessna 172P · Accident: overrun during landing

From Orange Municipal Airport (ORE) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
NYC94LA181
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
0
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 172P

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
N55164
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Orange Municipal Airport (ORE), Orange, MATo not recorded
Aircraft age
Not recorded
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
Landing · landing roll
First occurrenceThe 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
Overrun
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Destroyed

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Sterling, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, ON HIS FIRST APPROACH TO THE RUNWAY, THE AIRPLANE WAS HIGH AND THE PILOT MADE A GO-AROUND. ON HIS SECOND APPROACH, THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT 1/2 TO 2/3 OF THE WAY DOWN THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO STOP THE AIRPLANE ON THE RUNWAY AND JUST PRIOR TO THE END OF THE RUNWAY ATTEMPTED TO TURN THE AIRPLANE. THE AIRPLANE DEPARTED THE END OF THE RUNWAY, FLIPPED OVER AND WENT DOWN AN EMBANKMENT. THE PILOT REPORTED HE THOUGHT HE COULD STOP ON THE REMAINING RUNWAY AFTER TOUCHDOWN AND DID NOT MAKE A GO-AROUND. THE PILOT HAD RECEIVED HIS PRIVATE PILOT CERTIFICATE 19 DAYS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT.

Probable cause

The pilot misjudged landing distance, which resulted in an overrun of the runway. A factor is the pilot's failure to do a go-around.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC94LA181
Event ID
20001206X02344
Case number
NYC94LA181
Dataset
historical-pre2008
Source SHA-256
89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: 1d48653ae4b986acb6fc5326b2e1ffe9ca374c4f6b49729c70cfa297907d04c7; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:37:47.639Z.