NYC01LA025 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: vortex turbulence encountered en route
From Cambridge Dorchester Airport (CGE) to Potomac Airfield (VKX)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA025
- 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
- N950ME
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cambridge Dorchester Airport (CGE), Cambridge, MDTo Potomac Airfield (VKX), Friendly, MD
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Vortex turbulence encountered
- 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 › Altitude, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Wake turbulence, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of a Cessna 172 was en route between two airports, on a heading of about 300 degrees, when it crossed the final approach course to another airport, which handled large airplanes. A Boeing 757 was on final approach, on a heading of about 360 degrees to that airport. The pilots of both airplanes were in contact with approach control, and acknowledged visual contact with each other. The pilot of the Cessna also acknowledged a caution for wake turbulence. The Boeing was descending. The Cessna crossed the flight path of the Boeing about 30 seconds after the Boeing passed through, at the same altitude. The pilot of the Cessna reported he was thrown about the cockpit, as the airplane rolled left and then pitched nose down. The pilot of the Cessna recovered to normal flight and landed at his planned destination. Post flight examination of the Cessna revealed wrinkled skin on top of the right wing, and further examination revealed a cracked rear spar underneath. The Aeronautical Information Manual recommended, 'Pilots should fly at or above the preceding aircraft's flight path, altering course as necessary to avoid the area behind and below the generating aircraft.' Surface winds were from 300 degrees at 16 knots with gusts to 24 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight decision to operate close behind a large airplane at the same altitude, which resulted in a wake turbulence encounter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA025
- Event ID
- 20001212X22246
- Case number
- NYC01LA025
- 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: b36fa9769c2c585a4737a8cf0cd5f29f0d54da13f9a7d624f7ba357962a7b9f3; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:22:29.343Z.