CHI90LA041 · Cessna 172N II
Cessna 172N II · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90LA041
- 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 172N II
- 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
- N75912
- Operator
- Howell, Hugh B. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Aircraft control, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER ABOUT 45 MINUTES OF LOCAL FLIGHT TO PRACTICE AIRWORK, THE PILOT RETURNED TO THE AIRPORT, INTENDING TO PRACTICE SHORT-FIELD LANDINGS ON THE TURF RUNWAY. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE USED THE SAME PROCEDURES (10 DEGREES OF FLAPS ABEAM THE THRESHOLD ON DOWNWIND, WITH FULL FLAPS ADDED JUST PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN TO 'LIFT' THE AIRCRAFT TO THE TOUCHDOWN POINT) FOR THE FIRST TWO LANDINGS, AND THEY WERE UNEVENTFUL. THE PILOT STATED THAT WHILE ON BASE LEG FOR THE THIRD APPROACH, HE JUDGED HE WAS TOO HIGH, SO HE ADDED FLAPS TO 20 DEGREES. WHEN FULL FLAPS WERE ADDED JUST PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN, THE AIRCRAFT NOSED DOWN AND STRUCK THE GROUND SHORT OF THE END OF THE RUNWAY. THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED AND THE AIRCRAFT NOSED OVER, COMING TO REST INVERTED. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE SHOULD HAVE ADDED POWER TO GET HIM TO THE RUNWAY, INSTEAD OF RELYING ON THE FLAPS TO 'LIFT' THE AIRCRAFT TO THE TOUCHDOWN POINT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER USE OF FLAPS TO PROVIDE LIFT ON SHORT FINAL APPROACH INSTEAD OF APPLYING POWER AND THE FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRCRAFT CONTROL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90LA041
- Event ID
- 20001213X29931
- Case number
- CHI90LA041
- 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: 32a40d7683d7036204b37d7fa7543aef37ebccfbaab9f67a990dd39d244ffbe2; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:55:35.701Z.