ERA12CA521 · Cessna 152
Cloud Dancer Aviation Cessna 152 · Accident: windshear or thunderstorm on approach
From Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED) to Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA521
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N49054
- Operator
- Cloud Dancer Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED), Deland, FLTo Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED), Deland, FL
- 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
- Windshear or thunderstorm
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that she checked the weather before departing on a maintenance flight in the airport traffic pattern; some thunderstorms were located to the northwest. She departed and climbed to 1,000 feet above ground level, set the engine at cruise power, and completed the traffic pattern. As she entered the pattern a second time, she noticed that the storms were moving toward the airport. As the airplane turned onto the final approach, the wind increased, the airplane encountered strong turbulence, and her approach became unstable. She then initiated a go-around; however, the airplane impacted the runway and came to rest inverted off of the left side. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane. Examination of the wreckage revealed structural damage to the airframe. Review of weather data revealed that a wind shift associated with nearby thunderstorms occurred immediately prior to the accident. The recorded wind speed about the time of the accident was 25 knots, gusting to 34 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control on final approach in gusting wind conditions. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to operate in an environment of thunderstorms and rapidly deteriorating weather.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA521
- Event ID
- 20120822X84516
- Case number
- ERA12CA521
- 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: 9f5767761ec1022be74ea4ebba27f2d27b4165c9c821496f4184f82f97ab3589; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:28:35.117Z.