ERA13CA208 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident on approach
From Unity Aerodrome (SC76) to Unity Aerodrome (SC76)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13CA208
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N76688
- Operator
- Wiese Jerry W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Unity Aerodrome (SC76), Lancaster, SCTo Unity Aerodrome (SC76), Lancaster, SC
- 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 go-around
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that before he departed for a local flight, the wind was “squirrelly and swapping around” and that at takeoff the wind favored runway 21. After flying for about 15 to 20 minutes, the pilot returned to the departure airport and flew over it to observe the windsock, which indicated the wind had shifted and now favored runway 3. He entered the airport traffic pattern for runway 3 and perceived that the ground speed was “a little fast” during the approach to land. He continued the approach and touched down about 1/3 down the runway and perceived that the groundspeed was now “real fast.” Because the airplane was tailwheel equipped, the pilot did not apply the brakes; instead, he added power to go around, reporting that the engine responded normally. The pilot said that the airplane barely cleared the power lines off the end of the runway with marginal airspeed, and then stalled/mushed into the trees beyond the power lines. The pilot also reported that he was not aware of any preimpact failure or malfunction that would have precluded normal operations of the airplane, engine, or engine systems.
A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the carburetor heat was on, the fuel selector was off, and the throttle was full forward. A weather observation taken about 23 minutes after the accident at an airport located about 13 nautical miles north of the accident airport indicated that the wind was from 200 degrees at 5 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to land with a tailwind and his failure to turn off the carburetor heat during a go-around, which resulted in degraded engine performance and the airplane’s subsequent collision with trees at the end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13CA208
- Event ID
- 20130419X64336
- Case number
- ERA13CA208
- 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: d33cf58777765f77c868185c4ac4219423a1167bd44639d47c8f8a13d6b2c43c; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:20:14.650Z.