CHI05LA067 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport (JVL) to Waukegan National Airport (UGN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA067
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N68714
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport (JVL), Janesville, WITo Waukegan National Airport (UGN), Waukegan, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Miscellaneous, not identified
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 experienced a nose gear collapse during a precautionary landing in a corn field. The student pilot stated that her radios became inoperative during the second leg of the solo cross country flight. She elected to bypass the airport she intended on landing at to return to her home airport. During the flight to her home airport, the pilot noticed that the fuel gauges were indicating empty. She stated the airplane was topped off at her last departure point so she should have had plenty of fuel, but she thought the airplane was possibly leaking fuel so she decided to land at a nearby airport. The pilot stated she lowered the flaps while in the traffic pattern, but she doesn't remember the flaps extending. She stated that as she tried to turn onto final approach, the airplane would not bank and the controls felt sluggish. The pilot stated she knew she was not going to make it to the runway so she located a field in which to land. The pilot stated she reduced the power to idle at which time the stall warning sounded so she lowered the nose of the airplane. She stated the field had a slight rise so she held the airplane off the ground as long as possible. The nose gear contacted snow during the landing and the nose gear collapsed. Post accident inspection of the airplane revealed corrosion was present at the wiring connectors on the master switch. The fuel gauges, radios, and flaps, are electrically actuated components. The flight controls were inspected and control continuity was established.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to identify the electrical system failure and to maintain adequate airspeed during the landing approach. Factors associated with the accident were the electrical system failure, the snow covered terrain, and the pilot's lack of experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA067
- Event ID
- 20050207X00138
- Case number
- CHI05LA067
- 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: dc2f1755fc6bc434cff3f747d1405bb39de6f560e6bc32982356c1062f6d17da; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:18:19.915Z.