CEN09LA579 · Cessna 172S
University of North Dakota Cessna 172S · Accident: abnormal runway contact during takeoff
From Park Rapids Municipal Airport Konshok Field (PKD) to Grand Forks International Airport (GFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA579
- 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 172S
- 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
- N523ND
- Operator
- University of North Dakota
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Park Rapids Municipal Airport Konshok Field (PKD), Park Rapids, MNTo Grand Forks International Airport (GFK), Grand Forks, ND
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 performed a go-around on the first attempted landing at the airport during night visual meteorological conditions. On the second attempt, he landed about mid-field and performed a stop and go landing. He initiated the takeoff using 10-degrees of flaps. The pilot reported that when he reached about 100 feet above ground level, he retracted the flaps. He felt that the airspeed was a little low (70 knots IAS) so he pushed the nose over. He stated that he did not think he was in a descent, but the airplane hit the ground about 100 feet from the end of the runway. The nose gear collapsed and both wings were damaged as the airplane bounced and skidded to a stop. The examination of the accident site revealed eight ground scars in the grass which were consistent with propeller strikes. The propeller blades exhibited leading edge nicks and gouges, chordwise scratching, and blade twist. The inspection of the airplane’s flight controls revealed no preexisting anomalies. The pilot reported that he had 112 hours of flight time with 112 hours in make and model. He had flown 9 hours at night which included 2 hours of night experience when he was pilot-in-command.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a proper climb rate during a night takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA579
- Event ID
- 20090914X20548
- Case number
- CEN09LA579
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-09-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0be73b212652710f116200803d09754f07fe27a225fcfd536a13e70e5dc6b9f3; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:00:01.295Z.