CHI04LA097 · Cessna 172R
Cessna 172R · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport (AZO) to Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport (AZO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA097
- 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 172R
- 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
- N986AV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport (AZO), Kalamazoo, MITo Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport (AZO)
- 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 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
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Procedures/directives, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, 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, operated by a university aviation training program as a student solo instructional flight, veered off runway 05 during landing. The flight was the student pilot's second solo flight at which time he had accumulated a total flight time of 28 hours. The university placed a maximum crosswind limitation of 5 knots for the student pilot's solo flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed with winds from 340 degrees at 13 knots at the time of the accident. The student pilot performed eight takeoff and landings on runway 35 when the tower air traffic controller instructed the student pilot to change to runway 05. The student pilot complied with the instruction and landed on runway 05 using a 30-degree flap setting. The airplane information manual states that in strong crosswinds a minimum flap setting required for field length should be used. Federal Aviation Order states that air traffic control (ATC) is to use the runway most nearly aligned with the wind when the wind is 5 knots or more. There was no runway in use program in effect for the accident runway. The order notes that if a pilot prefers to use a runway different from the one specified, the pilot is expected to advise ATC. The student pilot did not advise ATC of his preference of runway use.
Probable cause
The air traffic control procedures/directives not followed by tower air traffic controller, the inadequate compensation for wind conditions by the student pilot during landing, the lack of total experience by the student pilot, and the recommended crosswind flap setting not followed by the student pilot. The crosswind conditions were a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA097
- Event ID
- 20040412X00447
- Case number
- CHI04LA097
- 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: 493a94afcaf96c7c4d1c6c08c67d441d54b222cf6ea7b10a32687abbf14929a0; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:47:12.231Z.