ERA12FA319 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Sullivan County International Airport (MSV) to Cherry Ridge Airport (N30)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12FA319
- 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 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
- N34539
- Operator
- Unknown
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was operating on a temporary certificate in preparation for a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) competency checkride that was required as a result of a previous accident. (The previous accident occurred at the same airport in the same make and model of airplane but on the opposite runway. During that accident, the pilot delayed a decision to abort a long landing, and the airplane impacted trees beyond the end of the runway.)
On the day of the accident, the pilot was observed attempting to land the airplane with a tailwind estimated by observers to be at least 10 knots. The airplane completed two traffic pattern circuits to low approaches that resulted in go-arounds. As the airplane approached the runway a third time, it appeared to be "unusually fast." It commenced a landing flare past the runway identification numbers, floated, touched down nosewheel first, then porpoised several times. Just past the windsock, which was about 1,200 feet from the runway’s departure end, engine power was applied, and the airplane's nose pitched up excessively high. The airplane then stalled at an estimated 200 to 300 feet above the runway and began a spin to the left, completing about 180 degrees of rotation before impacting the ground with power on.
Postflight examination of the airplane revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Postflight toxicology testing revealed that the pilot had ingested an over-the-counter sedating antihistamine in a quantity that exceeded the therapeutic dosage rate. The antihistamine, which is not FAA-approved for use during piloting, carries a warning that it may impair mental and motor skills.
Probable cause
The pilot pitching the airplane to an excessive nose-up attitude during an aborted landing, which resulted in increased induced drag, diminished airspeed, and an aerodynamic stall/spin. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s use of a sedating antihistamine, which resulted in impaired mental and motor skills.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12FA319
- Event ID
- 20120505X53820
- Case number
- ERA12FA319
- 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: 41c1c88b3c492f7cc65fc54f1a57f3e8134d1534c620378772613b549596bbc9; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:20:39.121Z.