ERA12CA020 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident on approach
From Sullivan County International Airport (MSV) to Cherry Ridge Airport (N30)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA020
- 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 177B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N34218
- Operator
- Gilbert Jeffrey S
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sullivan County International Airport (MSV), Monticello, NYTo Cherry Ridge Airport (N30), Honesdale, PA
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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, while on final approach to the 2,420-foot-long, dry, asphalt runway with the flaps set to 30 degrees (full down), the airplane was a little too fast at 85 to 90 mph, instead of 70 mph. He stated that he did not perceive that the airplane floated over the runway but that, after touchdown, he realized there was insufficient runway remaining to stop. He added power to go around, raised the flaps incrementally, and continued ahead, but the airplane collided with trees. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the empennage. The pilot stated that there was nothing mechanically wrong with the airplane and that the accident could have been avoided by being on speed.
Probable cause
The pilot’s excessive airspeed during final approach and his delayed decision to abort the landing, resulting in the in-flight collision with trees during the go-around.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA020
- Event ID
- 20111011X62029
- Case number
- ERA12CA020
- 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: 5c1db3b0f3c340c3439ccf164ed66776491cd9a20927dc681a84e01436209bff; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:49:41.041Z.