CEN09LA335 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during takeoff
From Creve Coeur Airport (1H0) to Creve Coeur Airport (1H0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA335
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N76456
- Operator
- Richard L. Fiser · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Creve Coeur Airport (1H0), St. Louis, MOTo Creve Coeur Airport (1H0), St. Louis, MO
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident occurred during the second flight since the airplane had undergone maintenance on the left flap assembly. The pilot reported hearing a loud bang shortly after liftoff, which was followed by repeated banging from behind his position. He performed an immediate landing, touching down with about 50 feet of runway remaining. The airplane overran the end of the runway and nosed over in a wheat field. A post-accident inspection revealed that the upper half of the left inboard wing fairing was bent upward and aft. The one-piece fairing was properly secured to the lower wing structure, but none of the five upper screws were located. The fairing upper screw holes did not exhibit any damage. This lack of damage was not consistent with a progressive loss of the upper screws during flight. The fairing had been removed during the recent flap maintenance. According to the mechanic who performed the maintenance, the fairing was reinstalled in the presence of several individuals, including the pilot, and that all of the screws were installed before he returned the airplane to service. According to the pilot, during his preflight inspection he visually confirmed that the screws were installed, although he did not verify their security.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the wing fairing during recent maintenance, which resulted in the partial separation of the fairing shortly after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA335
- Event ID
- 20090604X10554
- Case number
- CEN09LA335
- 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: 72c6ae0662fa17ae994ff71993ca14c13251001a08479b762d90d9e10bae0f7d; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:17:34.600Z.