CEN12FA154 · Cessna 172N
Pro Flite Aviation Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF) to Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12FA154
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N5427J
- Operator
- Pro Flite Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF), San Antonio, TXTo Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF), San Antonio, TX
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Personnel issues › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a local flight, the pilot contacted an air traffic controller and stated he was returning to his departure airfield. Subsequently, the airplane disappeared from radar, and there was no reported distress call from the pilot or witnesses to the accident. The wreckage was found in an open field. At the time of the accident, visual meteorological conditions prevailed. Impact markings were consistent with the airplane having been in about a 90-degree nose-low attitude when it impacted terrain. An examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. An autopsy performed on the pilot noted evidence of an enlarged heart and extensive coronary artery disease. Given this information and the pilot’s history of a left anterior hemiblock, it is likely that the pilot became incapacitated due to a sudden cardiac arrhythmia or acute myocardial infarction.
Probable cause
The medical incapacitation of the pilot due to a sudden cardiac arrhythmia or acute myocardial infarction.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12FA154
- Event ID
- 20120210X44432
- Case number
- CEN12FA154
- 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: a6d56e09a00ac9051c8e58510426d1b271ce2416a5984f31d8278d956e05c39f; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:10:35.314Z.