NYC01LA047 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From 17N to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA047
- 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 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
- N757RR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 17NTo 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Separation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Cross Keys, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane lifted off the runway at about 70 knots, 3/4 down the length of the 3,500-foot long runway. The pilot/owner was flying the airplane from the right seat. As the airplane reached an altitude of 20-25 feet, the right control wheel broke off in the pilot's hands. The pilot reduced the power to idle, the airplane rolled to the right, impacted a tree, and came to rest inverted on the ground. Examination of the fracture surface on the shaft of the control wheel revealed features typical of an overstress separation. No evidence of fatigue cracking or other type of preexisting cracking or deterioration was noted. The upper portion of the fracture intersected the upper hole approximately at a 45-degree angle, indicative of torsional loading of the shaft (with the handle portion of the wheel turning to the left - counterclockwise) as the shaft fractured. According to the pilot/owner and the pilot-rated passenger (seated in the left seat), the control lock had been installed in the control wheel, and was removed during the preflight.
Probable cause
The overstress separation of the control yoke from the control column.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA047
- Event ID
- 20001212X22353
- Case number
- NYC01LA047
- 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: 3f123d03f2ce6b573bc1aef2611f5e59b70d696b002474fe81359bbe85fdc0e0; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:18:04.316Z.