CEN09CA181 · Cessna 172N
Alliance Flight Training Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC) to Colorado Air and Space Port (KFTG)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA181
- 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
- N737KR
- Operator
- Alliance Flight Training
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC), Broomfield, COTo Colorado Air and Space Port (KFTG), Watkins, CO
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was taxiing into position for takeoff when a wind gust, reported by the tower, of 52 knots lifted the right wing of the airplane. The right wing continued to rotate the aircraft and move it to the left on the ramp. The pilot attempted to maintain control but was unsuccessful and the aircraft rolled inverted. The pilot was able to egress unassisted and was not injured. Weather forecast at the 40 minutes prior to the accident indicated forecast winds 250 degrees at 15 knots. At 7 minutes after the accident the updated weather observation showed winds from 260 degrees at 38 knots with gusts to 52 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot and airplane's inability to compensate for the unforecasted gusting wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA181
- Event ID
- 20090301X10056
- Case number
- CEN09CA181
- 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. 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: aca36f89014e2f14995e5511e7a8f7aba52e1f7d37e0ccf544db95c5d0536120; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:47:32.202Z.