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ATL90LA045 · Cessna 152

3 Jan 1990 · Whiteville, NC, United States

Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing

From Conway Horry County Airport (HYW) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
ATL90LA045
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
N94187
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Conway Horry County Airport (HYW), Conway, SCTo 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
  • Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

A STUDENT PILOT HAD COMPLETED HIS SOLO AIR WORK & WAS ATTEMPTING TO RETURN TO HIS HOME AIRFIELD. AFTER PROCEEDING ON THE HEADING FROM THE PRACTICE AREA TO THE AIRFIELD FOR ABOUT 10 MINUTES, HE BECAME CONCERNED, & HEADED IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. HE RECOGNIZED HE WAS LOST. COMMUNICATIONS WERE ESTABLISHED WITH APPROACH CONTROL THROUGH ANOTHER AIRPLANE FROM THE SAME OPERATOR. A HEADING WAS PROVIDED TO HOME BASE. WHEN HE REPORTED OVER ANOTHER AIRPORT HE WAS INSTRUCTED TO LAND BY THE OPERATOR. DURING THE LANDING FLARE THE STUDENT LOST DIRECTIONAL CONTRO, ATTEMPTED A GO AROUND, OVER RAN THE RUNWAY, & HIT A CANAL.

Probable cause

THE STUDENT PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT AIRSPEED THROUGH THE LANDING FLARE TO AVOID A LOSS OF DIRECTIONAL CONTROL. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS HIS FAILURE TO ANTICIPATE CONTROL INPUTS REQUIRED BY INCREASED THRUST DURING THE GO AROUND.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ATL90LA045
Event ID
20001212X22364
Case number
ATL90LA045
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: 99bd92083919a9417ad2842e74892243063957eaeb9dfd3da38e43c6c4c3419c; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:53:21.087Z.