BFO89FA027 · Cessna 152
Planemaster Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Dupage Airport (DPA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO89FA027
- 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 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
- N93748
- Operator
- Planemaster
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dupage Airport (DPA)To 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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
- Flight instructor(on ground) › Improper training
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Maneuver, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
STUDENT IN CESSNA 152 (N93748) WAS SEQUENCED TO LND BHND N97M AS BEECH 90 (N20) WAS AWAITING TKOF. AS N97M WAS LNDG, N20 WAS CLRD ON RWY TO HOLD & THE STUDENT WAS CLRD TO LND. 39 SEC LTR, N20 WAS CLRD FOR TKOF. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, N93748STALLED AND CRASHED APRX 580' SHORT OF THE RWY. WITNESSES SAID THE STUDENT FLEW FM A CLOSE BASE TO A SHORT FINAL APCH, THEN MADE 2 OR 3 STEEP S-TURNS AT LOW SPEED, AS IF TO GET MORE SEPN BHND N20. TOWER SUPVSR (CIC) OBSERVED INADQT SEPN BUT TOOK NO ACTION TO CORRECT IT. WITNESSES SAID N20 WAS HOLDING ON THE RWY WHEN THE STUDENT BEGAN S-TURNING. BFR TKOF, THE PLT OF N93748 TOLD GND CTL SHE WAS A STUDENT. THIS INFO WAS NOT PASSED TO LCL CTLRS. LCL CTLR WAS IN TRNG. NEITHER HE NOR HIS INSTRUCTOR KNEW THE PLT OF N93748 WAS A STUDENT. AIM RCMDD STUDENT ID ON INITIAL CALL TO RDO FAC. BUT, ATC HNDBK DIDN'T REQUIRE INFO TO BE FWDD. FLAPS WERE FND AT 10 DEG; STUDENT WAS TRND TO USE FULL FLAPS AND USE S-TURNS ON FINAL FOR SPACING, AND TO RAISE FLAPS FULL UP FOR GO-ARND; POH RCMDD 20 DEG OF FLAPS UNTIL SAFE SPEED WAS OBTAINED.
Probable cause
IMPROPER INSTRUCTION BY THE STUDENT'S FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR REGARDING THE EXECUTION OF S-TURNS ON FINAL APPROACH TO INCREASE SPACING AND THE RETRACTION OF FLAPS FULLY WHEN EXECUTING A GO-AROUND AND THE FAILURE OF THE STUDENT PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE FLYING SPEED WHILE MAKING STEEP S-TURNS ON FINAL APPROACH. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE: INADEQUATE ATC CONTROL TOWER SERVICE AND TRAFFIC SEPARATION, IMPROPER SUPERVISION IN THE TOWER, AND INEXPERIENCE OF THE STUDENT PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO89FA027
- Event ID
- 20001213X28042
- Case number
- BFO89FA027
- 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: 3cdd90b87c33d6636a2158ec1705739c1e281d50a9949b76b3fb50a0dabef8f1; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:20:51.208Z.