CHI03LA102 · Cessna 172S
Waukegan Wings Cessna 172S · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Waukegan National Airport (UGN) to Campbell Airport (C81)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA102
- 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
- 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 172S
- 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
- N389SP
- Operator
- Waukegan Wings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waukegan National Airport (UGN), Waukegan, ILTo Campbell Airport (C81), Grays Lake, IL
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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(cfi) › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane nosed over after veering off the runway during landing. The certified flight instructor (CFI) reported the student pilot was circling to land for runway 9, but was told by a person on the ground that the winds were from the northwest. The student pilot then began to circle for runway 27. The CFI reported that the approach was normal and the student landed on the runway centerline. The student landed flat and the airplane bounced. The CFI pulled back on the yoke and the airplane drifted to the left. The airplane touched down on the left side of the runway and veered further to the left. The CFI reported she stated to the student, "I have the controls." The student pilot reported she was not sure who was on the controls. The airplane went into the mud to the left of the runway and nosed over. A weather reporting station 11 miles to the east-northeast of the accident site reported the winds from 050 degrees at 14 knots gusting to 18 knots.
Probable cause
The flight instuctor's improper in-flight decision to land with a tailwind and failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during landing. Factors contributing to the accident were the tailwind, the student pilot's inadequate flare, and the muddy terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA102
- Event ID
- 20030414X00494
- Case number
- CHI03LA102
- 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: a72d75f51702f1ca11461da0898e89401943005ea0fe8f125ae63d0187a43292; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:25:18.886Z.