CEN10CA346 · Cessna 152
St Charles Flying Service Cessna 152 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From 3SQ · St. Charles, MO to 3SQ · St. Charles, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA346
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N5461B
- Operator
- St Charles Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3SQ · St. Charles, MOTo 3SQ · St. Charles, 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
- Landing
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that she was conducting touch-and-go takeoffs and landings. During the last touch-and-go landing, she retracted the flaps and applied full throttle. The ground roll seemed slightly longer than previous takeoffs. After liftoff, the airplane was not climbing and the pilot thought that it was developing less than full power. As the airplane was approaching power lines, the pilot felt that the airplane would not clear them so she elected to land on a field. The airplane impacted the ground during the landing and sustained substantial damage, which included a damaged left wing, a ruptured fuel tank, and a deformed fuselage. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the airplane cockpit flap indicator was in the 20-degree position. No preexisting mechanical anomalies were noted with the airframe, engine, or engine accessories that would have precluded normal operation. According to the aircraft’s Pilot Operating Handbook, “Normal takeoffs are accomplished with wing flaps 0°- 10°. Using 10° wing flaps reduces the total distance over an obstacle by approximately 10%. Flap deflections greater than 10° are not approved for takeoff.”
Probable cause
The pilot's improper takeoff procedure that led to a decreased climb rate and subsequent off-airport landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA346
- Event ID
- 20100628X33454
- Case number
- CEN10CA346
- 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: d6da9853f086a1535a0c05b0ce83b7e17400656d733d0b1252e0c236defd5c3a; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:30:57.377Z.