ERA11CA181 · Cessna 172K
Cessna 172K · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Dare County Regional Airport (MQI) to Ocracoke Island Airport (W95)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11CA181
- 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 172K
- 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
- N84867
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dare County Regional Airport (MQI), Manteo, NCTo Ocracoke Island Airport (W95), Ocracoke, NC
- 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 in flight
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he maneuvered the airplane for an approach to the runway and was compensating for a crosswind. While over the approach end of the runway, about 20 feet above the ground, the airplane descended rapidly and touched down hard. As the airplane bounced back airborne, the pilot attempted to recover by applying full engine power and it started to accelerate. Before sufficient altitude was gained, the wind pushed the airplane to the left into bushes located about 30 feet off the runway. The airplane came to a full stop just short of mid field. The left side of the fuselage and left wing incurred substantial damage. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate flare and failure to regain control of the airplane while attempting to recover from bounced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11CA181
- Event ID
- 20110306X94121
- Case number
- ERA11CA181
- 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: 687d550eda60a07d1cce792c6676fdbd71b240d2b5879e02a95cfa1b5d13762d; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:53:07.693Z.