NYC87FA045 · Cessna 152
Clark Aviation Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Capital City Airport (CXY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA045
- 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
- N69123
- Operator
- Clark Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Capital City Airport (CXY), CUMBERLAND, PATo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aerobatics, performed
- Pilot in command › Descent, not corrected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT FLYING A CESSNA 152 SCHEDULED HIS FLIGHT PERIOD SO IT COINCIDED WITH ANOTHER STUDENT PILOT FLYING A CESSNA 172. THE PILOT OF THE CESSNA 172 REPORTED SEEING THE CESSNA 152 ENTER A TWO TURN SPIN AND RECOVER. HE THEN SAID HE LOST SIGHT OF THE AIRCRAFT AND RETURNED TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. GROUND WITNESSES REPORTED TWO AIRCRAFT ENGAGED IN AERIAL MANEUVERING. OTHER WITNESSES SAW THE CESSNA 152 IN A TERMINAL DIVE FROM WHICH NO RECOVERY WAS MADE. NO WITNESSES WHO OBSERVED THE AERIAL MANUEVERING OBSERVED THE TERMINAL DIVE. NO PRE-EXISTING PROBLEM COULD BE FOUND WITH THE AIRFRAME. THE ENGINE HAD WEAR NOTED, BUT NO PRE-EXISTING FAILURE WAS FOUND. THE PILOT WAS THROWN CLEAR OF THE WRECKAGE AND RECEIVED FATAL INJURIES AND THE AIRCRAFT WAS DESTROYED BY IMPACT AND POST CRASH FIRE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA045
- Event ID
- 20001213X35421
- Case number
- NYC87FA045
- 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: 3857e266a8c0b30af7b2e69924cbf6dde7a5d6921cc66acc815d1ad921a5ec8f; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:18:34.145Z.