CHI88FA162 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From 3FM · Fremont, MI to Park Township Airport (HLM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88FA162
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N80943
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3FM · Fremont, MITo Park Township Airport (HLM)
- 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/mush; 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE 2 FNT SEAT OCCUPANTS WERE PLTS & WERE TAKING TURNS AT FLYING THE ACFT ON ALTN LEGS OF THE FLT. AFTER REFUELING, THEY DEPD FREMONT WITH THE CO-OWNER OF THE ACFT IN THE RGT FNT SEAT, THE OTR PLT (PIC) IN THE LEFT FNT SEAT & 2 PAX IN THE REAR SEATS. WHEN THEY ARRIVED AT HOLLAND, THE AIR WAS TURBULENT. DRG THE LNDG, THE ACFT BOUNCED & BALLOONED. THE PIC INITIATED A GO-AROUND, BUT GUSTS OF WIND BLEW THE ACFT TO THE RGT. ACCORDING TO THE CO-OWNER, THE AIRSPEED WAS NOT INCREASING AFTER LIFT-OFF & THE STALL WARNING HORN WAS SOUNDING. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT STRUCK A TREE, THEN CRASHED IN A RESIDENTUAL AREA, HITTING A HOUSE BEFORE COMING TO REST IN THE BACKYARD. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE INDCD THE FLAPS WERE EXTENDED 10 TO 20 DEGS WHEN THE ACFT CRASHED. THE ACFT WT WAS ESTIMATED TO BE SLIGHTLY LESS THAN THE MAX LIMIT OF 2300 LBS WHEN IT CRASHED. APRX 27 MI NORTHWEST, AT MUSKEGON, MI, THE 1350 EDT WIND WAS FROM 210 DEG AT 19 GUSTING 28 KTS.
Probable cause
PILOT'S INADEQUATE AIRCRAFT HANDLING DURING THE APPROACH TO LANDING AND LANDING FLARE PHASE OF FLIGHT. THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE AND AVOID A SITUATION FROM WHICH IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE-DUE TO THE WEIGHT OF THE AIRCRAFT, THE AMOUNT OF POWER AVAILABLE FROM THE ENGINE, AND THE PRESENCE OF OBSTACLES IN THE FLIGHT PATH- TO ACHIEVE AND MAINTAIN AN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED AND RATE OF CLIMB, RESULTED IN THE AIRCRAFT'S STALL/MUSH AND DESCENT INTO A WOODED RESIDENTIAL AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88FA162
- Event ID
- 20001213X26162
- Case number
- CHI88FA162
- 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: fd7a9802328826693c4d82783a63fe1966d99e3c66dd22bed35c5e18c71ea633; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:39:14.904Z.