IAD05FA067 · Cessna 172S
Air Fleet Training Systems Cessna 172S · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Linden Airport (LDJ) to Linden Airport (LDJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05FA067
- 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
- 4 · 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
- N778LP
- Operator
- Air Fleet Training Systems
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Linden Airport (LDJ), Linden, NJTo Linden Airport (LDJ)
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- 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) › Airspeed, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After departing on an instructional flight, the instructor and three passengers were fatally injured when the airplane impacted terrain while maneuvering along a beach. Radar data showed the accident flight at 300 feet and at a ground speed of 60 knots just prior to the accident. This was correlated by witness statements that the airplane was observed to be at a low altitude prior to descending in a nose down attitude and impacting the ground. No preimpact malfunctions of the airplane were discovered and the flaps were in the 30-degree position. A review of the accident flight's weight and balance information revealed that the flight was flown in an overweight condition. According to the manufacturer's information manual for the airplane, at the maximum certificated takeoff weight, an altitude loss during a stall recovery could be as much as 230 feet. At the 30-degree wing flap position, published stall speeds for the airplane ranged from 40 knots at 0 degrees of bank to 57 knots at 60 degrees of bank.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which resulted in an inadvertent stall and subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD05FA067
- Event ID
- 20050526X00678
- Case number
- IAD05FA067
- 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: 086dd6b0bf1649cabf8df778af947dd3a14f1bcd9bd21c849a43de1c49347b79; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:02:46.306Z.