ERA12CA369 · Cessna 172 S
Lanier Equipment Leasing Cessna 172 S · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport (GVL) to Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport (GVL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA369
- 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 172 S
- 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
- N787LF
- Operator
- Lanier Equipment Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport (GVL), Gainesville, GATo Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport (GVL), Gainesville, GA
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that he was providing instruction to a student who had about 10 hours of flight experience. During the first takeoff roll, the student attempted to steer the airplane with the control yoke instead of the rudder pedals. The flight instructor provided verbal instruction and then attempted to take control of the airplane. The student applied full left rudder, which the flight instructor was unable to counter. The flight instructor was eventually able to reject the takeoff, but the airplane continued to turn to the left, as the student was “frozen on the left rudder.” The instructor could not stop the airplane before it overran the runway and collided with the glideslope antenna. Postaccident examination revealed substantial damage to the fuselage and horizontal stabilizer. Skid marks confirmed the flight instructor's attempt to stop the airplane and the airplane’s continued turn to the left.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper use of the flight controls during the takeoff and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action. Contributing to the accident was the student pilot’s interference with the flight instructor’s attempted remedial actions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA369
- Event ID
- 20120529X04821
- Case number
- ERA12CA369
- 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: 2f20008be8c3c629bead0bc8e095359a1aca2d9f7d85b30175d68e4aec88ab62; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:17:20.874Z.