CEN09CA530 · Cessna 172 S
Cessna 172 S · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Cheyenne Regional Jerry Olson Field (KCYS) to Centennial Airport (KAPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA530
- 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 172 S
- 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
- N22265
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cheyenne Regional Jerry Olson Field (KCYS), Cheyenne, WYTo Centennial Airport (KAPA), Centennial, 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot implemented crosswind landing procedures to include a left crab angle of approximately seven degrees. While on final approach to land on Runway 17R, the winds were reported as being from 120 degrees at 15 knots. Upon reaching the runway threshold, the pilot transitioned the airplane to a left side slip and aligned with the runway. During the flare, the left main wheel touched the runway and the airplane "weather vaned" to the left. The pilot's corrective measures failed to realign the airplane with the runway heading; the airplane flipped inverted and came to rest upside down on the runway, resulting in substantial damage. A special automated weather observation report, taken near the time of the accident, reported the winds as being from 140 degrees at 13 knots, gusting to 20 knots. No mechanical anomalies were reported with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during the landing flare in crosswind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA530
- Event ID
- 20090818X60351
- Case number
- CEN09CA530
- 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: 96508eaa7c80b16e161bf079a9b7d39dcfa0068c1dbc34994f5def29eacac740; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:48:52.306Z.