CHI04LA137 · Cessna 175
Cessna 175 · Accident: overrun during landing
From Lenawee County Airport (ADG) to Blissfield, MI (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA137
- 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 175
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N9401B
- Operator
- James E. Thompson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lenawee County Airport (ADG), Adrian, MITo Blissfield, MI (private airstrip)
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Proper touchdown point, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
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 during a landing overrun on the pilot's private airstrip. The pilot reported he was landing to the west on his 1,300 foot by 100 foot grass airstrip when the accident occurred. He stated there are high-tension power lines on the west end of the airstrip so if the winds are 5 knots or less, he lands to the west so he does not have to cross the lines on approach. The pilot stated the winds at his departure airport, 6 minutes away, were from 050 degrees at 6 knots. He stated he landed a bit further down the airstrip than normal and he attempted to ground loop the airplane when he realized he was not going to be able to stop. The pilot stated that due to the lack of friction because of the grass, he was unable to ground loop the airplane and it continued off the end of the airstrip. The airplane nosed over when it contacted a 6-foot deep drainage ditch.
Probable cause
The pilot selected the wrong runway on which to land which resulted in exceeding the proper touchdown point during landing. Factors associated with the accident were the tailwind condition and the drainage ditch which the airplane contacted.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA137
- Event ID
- 20040701X00896
- Case number
- CHI04LA137
- 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: 058ba1bc7aa7f8fcc5021f0981067a9fe3f9c6bf5a449a59b74d4be6c966b49b; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:13:49.203Z.