NYC96LA129 · Cessna 172C
Cessna 172C · Accident: overrun during takeoff
From Block Island State Airport (BID) to Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA129
- 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 172C
- 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
- N1665Y
- Operator
- James Mackinnon
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Block Island State Airport (BID)To Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD), Hartford, CT
- 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
- Overrun
- 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
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Movement restricted
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Removal of control/gust lock(s), not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Block Island, RI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot conducted a preflight inspection, then began his planned departure. During the takeoff roll, the control wheel would not move aft, and the airplane continue off the departure end of the runway. During the runway overrun, the pilot attempted to select a path of minimum obstruction ahead. Subsequently, the airplane encountered brush and came to rest inverted. Postaccident examination of the airplane, revealed the control lock was installed. When questioned about the installed control lock, the pilot stated, 'that would explain it.'
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight, by failing to remove the control lock and checking the flight controls before takeoff, and his failure to abort the takeoff in a timely manner, which resulted in an overrun, an encounter with brush, and a subsequent nose over of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA129
- Event ID
- 20001208X06090
- Case number
- NYC96LA129
- 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: e5307ac3a2f6b8be840edb21d1f3a0e11e4d46f2b548de0dd9db389659934e28; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:40:49.830Z.