SEA92FA075 · Cessna 172P
Wings of Denver Flying Club Cessna 172P · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA92FA075
- 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
- 5 · 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
- N63078
- Operator
- Wings of Denver Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Maneuvering · turn to landing area (emergency)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot passenger › Control interference, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
IMMEDIATELY AFTER TAKEOFF FROM RWY 17L THE PILOT REQUESTED AN '...IMMEDIATE LANDING...' ON RWY 35R. APRX 17 SECS LATER, IN RESPONSE TO THE TOWER'S QUERY, THE RIGHT FRONT SEAT PAX (24-HR STUDENT PLT) VERIFIED BY RADIO THE FLIGHT'S INTENTION. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED IN A 180 DEG LEFT TURN IMMEDIATELY AFTER CROSSING THE UPWIND END OF THE RWY. IT STALLED AND IMPACTED THE GROUND 400 FT SHORT OF RWY 35R. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED APRX 150-200 FT AGL AFTER CLEARING THE DEPARTURE END OF THE 10,000-FT RWY. THE FRONT SEAT PAX'S WIFE & 2 INFANT DAUGHTERS WERE IN THE REAR; HIS SEAT BELT AND SHOULDER HARNESS WAS FOUND UNATTACHED. THE FRONT SEAT PAX INJURIES INCLUDED LARGE LACERATIONS TO POSTERIOR ASPECTS OF THE BACK AND RIGHT ELBOW. THE FRONT SEAT PAX WEIGHED 240 LBS; THE PLT WEIGHED 150 LBS.
Probable cause
A LOSS OF AIRPLANE CONTROL INITIATED BY INADVERTENT CONTROL INTERFERENCE BY THE PASSENGER PILOT WHILE APPARENTLY ATTEMPTING TO QUELL A DISTURBANCE OF AN UNKNOWN NATURE. AS A RESULT, THE PILOT DID NOT, OR WAS UNABLE TO, MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE TO PREVENT A STALL/SPIN. A FACTOR WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE DARK NIGHT CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA92FA075
- Event ID
- 20001211X14513
- Case number
- SEA92FA075
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-04-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e82efd32ce61713c8daa63e4d0f28360c3f0f2aba6bcf490b6344f04f0ad6d7f; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:16:13.384Z.