FTW83FA088 · Cessna 172N
Tejas Aviation Cessna 172N · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Addison Airport (ADS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW83FA088
- 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
- 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
- N737VQ
- Operator
- Tejas Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Addison Airport (ADS), Addison, TXTo 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 downwind
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT REPORTED THAT DURING ARRIVAL, HE ENTERED THE DOWNWIND WITH NO PROBLEM; HOWEVER, WHEN HE ATTEMPTED TO TURN ON A LEFT BASE, THE AILERON CONTROL LOCKED UP. HE STATED HE COULD TURN NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT BY USING AILERONS. REPORTEDLY, THE ACFT WOULD BANK TO THE RIGHT WHEN HE USED LEFT RUDDER & VICE VERSA. THE PLT DECLARED AN EMERGENCY. AFTER CONTINUING WESTERLY APRX 6 MI, HE REDUCED POWER & LANDED IN A WHEAT FLD. DURING HE LANDING ROLL, THE NOSE GEAR HIT A DITCH & COLLAPSED AND THE ACFT NOSED OVER. AN EXAM OF THE FLT CONTROLS FAILED TO DISCLOSE ANY PREIMPACT FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. A CHECK OF THE AUTO-PILOT REVEALED THAT THE CONTROL SERVO, PN 1C-465-1-732, WAS COVERED WITH AN OILY APPEARING SUBSTANCE THAT WAS STICKY, AND WOULD NOT SLIP UNTIL WELL ABOVE THE SPECIFIED 42 LBS OF CABLE TENSION. NO OTHER PREIMPACT MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES OF THE ACFT WERE FOUND. THE RELATIVELY INEXPERIENCED PLT DID NOT REMEMBER ENGAGING THE AUTO-PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW83FA088
- Event ID
- 20001214X41985
- Case number
- FTW83FA088
- 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: cb804c72452f976a5d9d61e95fc963bd65e390ea6421e45c565c64b3a746bf8e; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:01:45.033Z.