FTW01FA058 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 and Cessna 172P · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01FA058
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Aircraft 1 · 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
- N114SS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Durant Regional Airport - Eaker Field (DUA), Durant, OKTo 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 172P
- 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
- N96621
- Operator
- Unknown
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Visual lookout, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A Cessna 172 had just crossed the east shoreline of a lake, traveling in a southeasterly direction in cruise flight, when its pilot felt a "lump or thud" near the rear of the airplane. The Cessna 172 (white with blue and gray trim) and a Cessna 152 (white with blue and gold trim) had collided. The pilot of the Cessna 172 then felt air coming into the cabin from the left door and realized that the airplane required excessive right rudder to maintain directional control. Subsequently, the Cessna 172 proceeded to a nearby airport and landed without further incident. The Cessna 152 entered an uncontrolled descent and impacted the lake. The flight instructor and student pilot in the Cessna 152 were practicing pre-solo flight maneuvers. The Cessna 172 displayed longitudinal red and blue paint transfer markings, which initiated at the left wing strut and extended aft along the exterior lower half of the pilot's door, which was compressed inward 5 inches. The witness marks continued aft along the left side of the fuselage and empennage ending approximately 1 foot forward of the horizontal stabilizer. A vertical propeller slash was observed on the belly of the Cessna 172, which initiated at a point 3 feet forward of the tail tie down ring and extended aft 2 feet. Two puncture holes were noted on the upper right side of the Cessna 172's empennage, which corresponded to the location that the Cessna 152's propeller blade tip exited the Cessna 172's airframe skin after it had severed one of the Cessna 172's rudder cables. The Cessna 152's shattered red navigational light lens, shattered clear strobe light lens and its coil, and sections of its left wing-tip cap were found on the cabin floor of the Cessna 172. Sections of the Cessna 152's left wing-tip cap, a 4-foot section of its aileron control surface, and its strobe light power box attached to a 2-foot section of left wing skin were located in a separate debris field along the shoreline of the lake. Official sunset for the accident area occurred at 1802, 7 minutes after the accident occurred. The pilot of the Cessna 172 reported that the visibility was clear with haze in the direction of the sun, which was setting.
Probable cause
the failure of both pilots to maintain a visual lookout, which resulted in a mid-air collision over a lake. A contributing factor to the accident was the sun glare from the setting sun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01FA058
- Event ID
- 20010214X00444
- Case number
- FTW01FA058
- 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, coordinates. 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: bc8070a1366aa16e5fe26186227dc10e557aa92997f009cc1ac5e8e74bf8e25a; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:40:17.709Z.