NYC97FA118 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Lee Airport (ANP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97FA118
- 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
- 2 · 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N93908
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lee Airport (ANP), MDTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Low altitude flight/maneuver, excessive
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to flying club records, the purpose of the flight was to complete an initial aircraft check for the pilot in the Cessna 152. The check was part of new member in-processing. The pilot was re-joining the flying club after a 9 year absence. The pilot had performed 3 previous takeoffs and landings prior to the accident takeoff. One witness described all four takeoffs as 'high performance.' Several witnesses described the accident takeoff in written statements. When the airplane reached an altitude of approximately 100 to 150 feet, they stated the airplane pitched up to an 'extremely' nose high attitude. Four witnesses described the pitch angle as '...well over 45 degrees...', '...45 to 60 degrees...', '...60 to 70 degrees up...', and '...60 degrees at least...'. Two witnesses described the pitch angle of the airplane as if it flew, left to right, across a clock face. Each said the nose was up at the '...one o'clock position.' Two witnesses said the airplane was '...just hanging on the prop.' Each pilot was airline transport rated with a combined flight experience of approximately 8,000 hours. Examination of the airplane did not disclose evidence of mechanical malfunction..
Probable cause
The pilot's excessive maneuver at a low altitude, and the flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the pilot, which resulted in an inadvertent stall/spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97FA118
- Event ID
- 20001208X08209
- Case number
- NYC97FA118
- 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: 3a4dae8e6f5bbd37631b85b930559f1884d0562aa24d4818dd467267e58b96bf; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:55:34.089Z.