CEN11CA261 · Cessna 172N
Peak Aviation Center Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (KCOS) to City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (KCOS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11CA261
- 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 172N
- 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
- N3484E
- Operator
- Peak Aviation Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (KCOS), Colorado Springs, COTo City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (KCOS), Colorado Springs, 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 · landing roll
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the pilot returned to the local airport, the airport tower controller informed him of a storm cell approaching the airfield, issued a clearance to land, and reported wind from 70 degrees left of runway heading at 25 knots gusting to 34 knots. The pilot estimated the wind at 18 knots of crosswind, and landed using 40 degrees of flaps. While on the landing roll, the wind shifted to a tailwind at which time the airplane began to drift to the right side of the runway. The pilot attempted to go-around, but could not regain control of the airplane. He then elected to abort the go-around and attempted to bring the airplane to a stop. The airplane departed the right side of the runway and continued into a field. The airplane encountered uneven terrain and the airplane nosed over. Substantial damage was sustained to the airplane's wings and vertical stabilizer. The pilot reported no preimpact malfunctions with the airplane. A review of air traffic control transmissions revealed the pilot was aware of alerts for low-level windshear and microbursts during this local flight. The airplane's pilot operating handbook directs pilots to utilize the minimum flap setting required for field length while operating in strong crosswind conditions. In addition, the handbook does not state a maximum allowable crosswind velocity, but states that average pilot technique should be able to handle 15 knots of crosswind.
Probable cause
The pilot loss of directional control during landing in gusty crosswind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11CA261
- Event ID
- 20110403X54041
- Case number
- CEN11CA261
- 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: a323a3fbef3ecbd3745443f8de29f4e4c64924f1cea9726ced557f2345f65ae5; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:00:01.120Z.