BFO95LA088 · Cessna 172G
Cessna 172G · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET) to Whalen Heliport (OH30)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95LA088
- 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 172G
- 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
- N3680L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET), Detroit, MITo Whalen Heliport (OH30), OH
- 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 · aborted
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted landing, delayed
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT WHEN HE ARRIVED AT THE DESTINATION AIRPORT, THE UNICOM FREQUENCY TRANSMISSIONS REGARDING ACTIVE RUNWAY INFORMATION WERE GARBLED. HE STATED THAT HE THOUGHT HE HEARD 'NO TRAFFIC' AND '22', SO HE ATTEMPTED TO LAND ON RUNWAY 22. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT AFTER THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN, HE REALIZED THAT HE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO STOP BY THE END OF THE RUNWAY, SO HE ABORTED THE LANDING. HE STATED THAT DURING THE CLIMB OUT, THE STALL ALARM SOUNDED INTERMITTENTLY, AND THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED TREES. THE PILOT STATED THAT THE ACCIDENT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED IF THE RADIO TRANSMISSIONS WERE BETTER AND HE HAD USED RUNWAY 4. WINDS IN THE VICINITY OF THE ACCIDENT SITE WERE REPORTED TO BE FROM 070 DEGREES AT 8 KNOTS. AN FAA INSPECTOR REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE HAD TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT HALF WAY DOWN THE 2870 FOOT LONG RUNWAY.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DELAY IN ABORTING THE LANDING AFTER SELECTING THE WRONG RUNWAY. FACTORS RELATING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: GARBLED RADIO TRANSMISSIONS ON THE UNICOM FREQUENCY, AND THE RESULTANT TAILWIND FOR LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95LA088
- Event ID
- 20001207X04173
- Case number
- BFO95LA088
- 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: a5607a87df1af55828adc302b25042099baabfad71d426293a7dcc5f808ea886; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:06:10.936Z.