BFO92LA097 · Cessna 172M
Bun Air Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From 4G9 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92LA097
- 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 172M
- 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
- N61941
- Operator
- Bun Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4G9To 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
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE CRASHED AT NIGHT ABOUT 800 FEET PAST THE END OF THE RUNWAY FOLLOWING AN ABORTED LANDING. THE PILOT RECEIVED HIS PRIVATE PILOT CERTIFICATE SIX DAYS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. HE HAD SIX HOURS OF NIGHT FLIGHT TIME. THE PILOT DOES NOT RECALL THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ACCIDENT, BUT A PASSENGER REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE LANDED HARD. THE PILOT THEN INCREASED POWER AND THE AIRPLANE LIFTED OFF, BEGAN TURNING LEFT, AND THEN DESCENDED TO THE GROUND. WITNESSES SAID THE AIRPLANE BARELY CLEARED A ROW OF TREES WHEN THE AIRPLANE PITCHED UP AND THE WINGS BEGAN ROCKING BACK AND FORTH. WITNESSES SAID THE ENGINE WAS OPERATING THE ENTIRE TIME. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND WITH THE LEFT WING AND THEN CAME TO REST INVERTED. THE EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THE FLAPS WERE UP AND THE ELEVATOR TRIM TAB ACTUATOR CORRESPONDED WITH ABOUT A 5 TO 10 DEGREE NOSE UP SETTING. THE EXAMINATION DID NOT REVEAL EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT FAILED TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92LA097
- Event ID
- 20001211X15066
- Case number
- BFO92LA097
- 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 1992-07-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2a6df3bde3a07f0cfc9893a9e2e90d28c87fed8a6f9b8b33387d26d42607aea5; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:51:12.146Z.