CHI91LA243 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91LA243
- 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 172
- 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
- N7113A
- Operator
- Richard L Trail · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK), McCook, NETo 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A SOLO STUDENT PILOT FLEW TO A NEARBY FIELD FOR A FULL STOP LANDING. THE PILOT COMPENSATED FOR A RIGHT CROSSWIND ON FINAL WITH WING DOWN INTO THE WIND. NEARING THE FLARE, THE PILOT LEVELED THE WINGS FOR THE ROUNDOUT AND TOUCHDOWN. THE AIRPLANE LANDED IN A LEFT DRIFT, WITH THE LEFT WHEEL OFF THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT STATED HE COULD NOT GET THE WHEEL BACK ON THE RUNWAY AND ALLOWED THE AIRPLANE TO ROLL ONTO THE GRASS. THE NOSEWHEEL ENTERED A DITCH, THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER.
Probable cause
THE STUDENT PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL DURING LANDING. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S DISCONTINUING HIS CROSSWIND COMPENSATION AND HIS LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN THE TYPE OF OPERATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91LA243
- Event ID
- 20001212X17516
- Case number
- CHI91LA243
- 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: 39010777a7dc5bbd2d1f5577b40e0601f324035bb741fdf5b46d8b73885ed019; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:52:26.417Z.