NYC06CA013 · Cessna 172K
Greenwood Lake Flight Training Cessna 172K · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Greenwood Lake Airport (4N1) to 4N1
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06CA013
- 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 172K
- 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
- N46475
- Operator
- Greenwood Lake Flight Training
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenwood Lake Airport (4N1), West Milford, NJTo 4N1
- 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 · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, 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 pilot initiated the takeoff roll, and as the airplane accelerated, the pilot's seat slid back to its aft most limit. As a result, the airplane departed the runway, impacted bushes, and incurred substantial damage. A review of the airplane's maintenance logbooks revealed that a new set of seat rails had been installed in the airplane about 31 flight hours prior to the accident. Examination of the seat rails revealed that the inboard rail had been modified with the addition of 5 locking pin holes. The airplane was originally equipped with a single locking pin type seat; however, a dual locking pin type seat was installed. Selection of any seat position, other that the three most aft positions, resulted in partial engagement of a single locking pin, while the other locking pin rested on top of the opposite seat rail. This combination of seat and seat rails was improper.
Probable cause
A loss of aircraft control as a result of the installation of an improper pilot seat which moved during the takeoff roll/run..
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06CA013
- Event ID
- 20051122X01873
- Case number
- NYC06CA013
- 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: 7f93b13c093820c4ff52cb994fd443a80eee396ea36fba8ef62abe666327f583; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:17:12.104Z.