CHI05CA146 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05CA146
- 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 172N
- 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
- N6454J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN), Madison, WITo not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- 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 possible
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The rental airplane was damaged when it struck the runway during takeoff. The pilot stated that he had pre-flighted the rental airplane and was issued a takeoff clearance. He stated that during the takeoff, the airplane became airborne and then subsequently struck the ground. He stated that the airplane became airborne a second time and again struck the ground. The pilot stated that at this time, he reduced power and held the brakes. The airplane struck the ground again and came to a halt. An examination of the airplane subsequent to the accident revealed that the control gust lock was still installed. The warning flag for the gust lock was broken off.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper pre-flight which resulted in the control lock not being removed and his subsequent inability to control the airplane. The unmarked control lock and the FBO's failure to replace the unmarked control lock were factors in the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05CA146
- Event ID
- 20050715X01037
- Case number
- CHI05CA146
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-06-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dc0850a3e51401448c32174424a845db679f11901e00ba62e931bed02a4fc274; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:47:59.568Z.