CHI06CA052 · Cessna 152
Spring City Aviation Cessna 152 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during landing
From Waukesha County Airport (UES) to Rhinelander Oneida County Airport (RHI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06CA052
- 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
- N6085M
- Operator
- Spring City Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waukesha County Airport (UES), Waukesha, WITo Rhinelander Oneida County Airport (RHI), Rhinelander, WI
- 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
- 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/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
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
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, piloted by a student pilot on a solo cross country instructional flight, sustained substantial damage on impact with the snow and ice on a frozen lake. The pilot stated, "While in route I made the decision to land on Pelican Lake located about 20 mi south of Rhinelander WI. ... Upon main gear touching down the gear was restricted and pulled the nose of the aircraft to the ground (ice) slid about 25 yards then settled back onto main gear." The pilot's safety recommendation stated, "This accident could have been prevented if I would have just stuck to my flight plan and [federal aviation regulations]. I realize that I made a very bad decision to land on the lake and have learned greatly from it."
Probable cause
The pilot selecting an unsuitable landing area. Factors were the snow and ice covered lake.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06CA052
- Event ID
- 20051230X02037
- Case number
- CHI06CA052
- 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: 2dca5f57887f487b6ee6df122d3f570ed64fa8f58edff0e8e21004353fb0600e; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:11:05.681Z.