NYC08LA228 · Cessna 172M
Lakehurst Navy Flying Club Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Ocean County Airport (MJX) to Lakehurst Maxfield Field Airport (NEL)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08LA228
- 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 172M
- 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
- N13105
- Operator
- Lakehurst Navy Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ocean County Airport (MJX), Toms River, NJTo Lakehurst Maxfield Field Airport (NEL), Lakehurst, NJ
- 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
- 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 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a soft-field takeoff demonstrated by the student pilot, the certificated flight instructor's(CFI's) seat rolled backward, and he instinctively reached for the control yoke. The airplane yawed to the left, the left wing struck the ground, and the airplane flipped over. The CFI stated that he adjusted the seat forward prior to taxiing the airplane to the runway and recalled "shaking the seat" to assure it was in the locked position. Examination of the seat tracks for the CFI's seat revealed that all four roller housing tangs (feet) were spread and bent, and the corresponding locations on the seat tracks were gouged. Examination of the seat tracks for both seats revealed several seat pin adjustment holes exceeded the dimensions for acceptable wear as described in the Cessna Service Manual, and "excessive wear" was noted to the seat track cap widths and the roller housing tangs. An Airworthiness Directive (AD) which required inspection of the seat tracks was completed 90 hours prior to the accident. The AD did not require inspection for excessive wear to the seat track cap widths and the tangs of the seat housings.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot's seat to engage or remain engaged due to the improper inspection of the worn seat tracks.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08LA228
- Event ID
- 20080715X01049
- Case number
- NYC08LA228
- 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: 5f0391d742b6c5f65522413799356c033570641a58cc78d5644ecefe38fdd20e; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:54:44.193Z.