ERA13LA037 · Cessna 172D
Cessna 172D · Accident before flight
From Goose Creek Airport (28A) to Goose Creek Airport (28A)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA037
- 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 172D
- 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
- N2879U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Goose Creek Airport (28A), Indian Trail, NCTo Goose Creek Airport (28A), Indian Trail, NC
- 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
- Prior to flight
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 structures
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane departed from a 2,350 foot long runway that had tall trees located off its departure end. As loaded, with full fuel and the pilot and three passengers aboard, the airplane was about 117 pounds below its maximum gross operating weight at takeoff. The pilot selected 10 degrees of flaps for takeoff; however, the owner's manual stated that normal and obstacle clearance takeoffs were to be performed with wing flaps retracted and specified the use of takeoff flaps only for soft or rough fields.
Just after liftoff (the pilot estimated the altitude to be about 40 feet above the ground), the airspeed began to deteriorate and the stall warning sounded. Because of the row of trees off the end of the runway, the pilot could not land straight ahead, so he turned about 10 degrees left and aimed toward a shorter tree. The airplane’s right main landing gear impacted the tree, and the pilot landed the airplane on a nearby road. During the landing roll, the left wing struck a tree, the airplane swerved to the left, and the nose landing gear sheared off before the airplane slid to a stop.
Examination of the airplane and a postaccident engine run did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal engine operation. It is likely that the pilot’s improper use of flaps during takeoff while operating near the airplane’s maximum gross weight reduced the airplane’s climb capability and it was unable to clear the trees off the end of the departure runway.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper use of flaps for takeoff, which resulted in the airplane’s failure to attain adequate climb airspeed and subsequent collision will trees during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA037
- Event ID
- 20121023X11005
- Case number
- ERA13LA037
- 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: 14f7027ed4ed08f28e09f23baec9b20a507e1142e546e0fca03df8a7249cc02d; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:15:18.712Z.