ERA12CA162 · Cessna 172L
Champlain Island Hoppers Cessna 172L · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV) to Middle Hero Seaplane Base (29VT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA162
- 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 172L
- 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
- N811P
- Operator
- Champlain Island Hoppers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV), Burlington, VTTo Middle Hero Seaplane Base (29VT), Grand Isle, VT
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that before departing for a private airport, he called the owner of the airport to inquire about the condition of the turf runway. The owner reported that the runway appeared to be "okay." Upon reaching the destination airport, the pilot conducted two approaches to the runway that were "steeper and faster" than he desired, and he aborted both landing attempts. On the third approach, the airplane touched down about 500 feet from the runway threshold. After touchdown, the pilot realized that he had little braking effectiveness and was unable to stop the airplane. The airplane traveled off the departure end of the runway and impacted trees, resulting in substantial damage to both the left and right wings. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of any mechanical malfunctions or failures. The pilot and a Federal Aviation Administration inspector reported that, although the grass on the runway appeared normal from the air, there was a layer of ice underneath due to rain and below-freezing temperatures for several days prior to the accident, resulting in slick runway conditions.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to stop the airplane on a grass runway with undetected ice.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA162
- Event ID
- 20120128X41941
- Case number
- ERA12CA162
- 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: 68b58bad01ed57c5428dbfbc68877dbc26b878a26ed4f93c71dbd4ae05319dab; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:07:31.325Z.