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DFW08CA151 · Cessna CE-172M

18 May 2008 · San Antonio, TX, United States

Wright Flyers Aviation Cessna CE-172M · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing

From San Antonio International Airport (SAT) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
DFW08CA151
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 CE-172M

Aircraft type
Cessna CE-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
N1281U
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From San Antonio International Airport (SAT), San Antonio, TXTo 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
Landing
Defining eventThe 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
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

  • Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The student pilot stated on the pilot operator report that she was 1,000 feet above the runway and three miles out on a straight in approach to a 5,000 foot long runway when she decided to make a short field landing. The pilot "heard a pop sound" when the nose wheel touched on the first impact and the airplane bounced two more times before landing. The hard landing caused structural damage to the wing spar and to the nose gear and firewall. The student pilot was unable to taxi because of the blown nose tire.

Probable cause

The student pilots improper short field landing procedure and excessive rate of descent. A contributing factor was the student pilots improper recovery from a bounced landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DFW08CA151
Event ID
20080626X00920
Case number
DFW08CA151
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: a49d190e64bc1dc6d9b8186defb119b694adf57c54a775e49c53625f5efeb11e; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:48:55.915Z.