CHI05CA115 · Cessna 172H
LeMay Flight Trainng Center Cessna 172H · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during landing
From Offutt Air Force Base (OFF) to Offutt Air Force Base (OFF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05CA115
- 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 172H
- 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
- N4987R
- Operator
- LeMay Flight Trainng Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Offutt Air Force Base (OFF), Offutt AFB, NETo Offutt Air Force Base (OFF)
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- 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 contacted the runway following a loss of control while landing. The student reported the accident occurred on his second solo flight. He stated that after takeoff he practiced maneuvers prior to flying to a near-by airport to practice takeoffs and landings. The pilot stated he flew over the runway to check the wind sock. He stated the winds were from 150 degrees at 5 knots, so he elected to land on runway 16. The pilot stated he made one uneventful landing. He stated that during the second landing, after the main gear touched down, the left main gear rose up off the runway. He stated this resulted in the propeller and the right wing contacting the runway. The airplane then settled back on the gear and the pilot taxied the airplane off of the runway. The closest weather reporting station was 12 nautical miles north of the accident airport, The reported winds were from 120 degrees at 10 knots gusting to 15 knots. The student pilot reported having a total of 29 hours of flight time.
Probable cause
The student pilot's inadequate compensation for the wind conditions which resulted in a loss of aircraft control. A factor associated with the accident was the gusting crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05CA115
- Event ID
- 20050527X00688
- Case number
- CHI05CA115
- 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: 8a7eecf87031e7c8eec9d97e3828b588847d04db026cb33e4edda14ea606640d; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:57:06.626Z.