NYC95LA072 · Cessna 120
Cessna 120 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Chautauqua County-Jamestown Airport (JHW) to Skaneateles Aero Drome (6B9)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95LA072
- 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 120
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 120
- 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
- N77467
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chautauqua County-Jamestown Airport (JHW), Jamestown, NYTo Skaneateles Aero Drome (6B9), NY
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Brakes(normal), improper use of
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
This was the student's final cross-country flight needed to qualify for his private pilot license. He reported about 140 solo takeoffs in the aircraft. According to the pilot, 'I executed a sharp 180 degree turn and lined up with the centerline. Since I stopped at this point and did not pull ahead, the tailwheel was unlocked and at approximately 90 degrees to the runway axis. Upon applying power, the tailwheel carried the rear of the plane slightly to the right (and the nose to the left) as it straightened out to trail behind. My reaction to the leftward movement of the nose was to apply right rudder... As the craft rolled off the pavement on its straight, misguided course, the left wheel approached a snow pile at the intersection of a taxiway with the runway.' The pilot reduced power to abort the takeoff. Upon the application of brakes, the aircraft nosed over and came to rest inverted. The piloted stated the accident could have been prevented by a better understanding of the tailwheel mechanism, and a better familiarity with the braking characteristics of the aircraft
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain directional control and his improper use of the brakes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95LA072
- Event ID
- 20001207X03181
- Case number
- NYC95LA072
- 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: 3988ada7191c1009b17aac7cc8ae268d0312642291e1cc7d3a66aa9fcfed7af5; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:10:09.002Z.