NYC82DA031 · Cessna 172N
Mcguire A.F. Aero Club Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Wrightstown, NJ to Wrightstown, NJ
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC82DA031
- 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
- N738QM
- Operator
- Mcguire A.F. Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wrightstown, NJTo Wrightstown, NJ
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Go-around, delayed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Wrightstown, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RETURNED FROM A LOCAL FLIGHT WITH FOUR PASSENGERS ON BOARD. THE AIRCRAFT GROSS WEIGHT WAS NEAR THE MAXIMUM LIMIT AND THE CENTER OF GRAVITY WAS NEAR THE FORWARD LIMIT. THE PILOT ENTERED THE TRAFFIC PATTERN FOR LANDING ON RUNWAY 36. THE WIND WAS FROM 270 DEGREES AT 10 GUSTING 21 KTS. ON FINAL, THE PILOT HAD LOWERED THE FLAPS TO 20 DEGREES AND THE AIRSPEED WAS AT 60 KTS. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, THE AIRCRAFT WAS DRIFTING TO THE RIGHT WHEN HE APPLIED LEFT AILERON AND RIGHT RUDDER TO CORRECT FOR THE DRIFT. AT AN ALTITUDE OF ABOUT 50 FT, A DECISION WAS MADE TO GO-AROUND. HE APPLIED FULL POWER AND TURNED THE CARBURETOR HEAT OFF. THE PILOT STATED THAT THE PLANE SETTLEDTO 5 FT AGL AND THE SPEED INCREASED TO 80 KTS. THE FLAPS WERE RAISED, THE TRIM WAS NEUTRALIZED, AND THE PLANE DRIFTED RIGHT. THE PILOT STATED HE WAS UNABLE TO APPLY ENOUGH BACK PRESSURE TO PULL UP. THE PLANE TOUCHED DOWN ON AN INACTIVE RUNWAY, BECAME AIRBORNE AGAIN, THEN TOUCHED DOWN NOSE FIRST AT THE EDGE OF THE RAMP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC82DA031
- Event ID
- 20020917X02493
- Case number
- NYC82DA031
- 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: f6dc548ff7ecc08e82e12cedd22f2ec1e542da1b35be11bbee4d918985474b1a; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:42:50.240Z.