FTW03FA053 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Chickasha Municipal Airport (CHK) to Chickasha Municipal Airport (CHK)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03FA053
- 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
- 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
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
- N5155E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chickasha Municipal Airport (CHK), Chickasha, OKTo Chickasha Municipal Airport (CHK)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Missing
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not possible
- Wing, bracing strut › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an aerial observation flight, the aircraft experienced an in-flight break up. Evidence at the accident site revealed that the right wing separated from the aircraft prior to impact. Further examination revealed that the right wing's strut to fuselage fitting was found without a nut that secures the fitting to the fuselage.
Probable cause
The in-flight separation of the right wing due to the missing nut that secures the right wing's strut to fuselage fitting to the fuselage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03FA053
- Event ID
- 20021230X05642
- Case number
- FTW03FA053
- 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: 40cb26b3383f86290b2f94c5cc0163b20453b017d2739e88dc5aa9d07672b528; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:36:30.438Z.