WPR13CA397 · Cessna 172S
Westwind Aviation Cessna 172S · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13CA397
- 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 172S
- 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
- N2134M
- Operator
- Westwind Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Deer Valley, AZTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Deer Valley, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a practice touch-and-go landing, the student pilot did not properly maintain runway alignment during the landing flare. The flight instructor took control of the airplane as the wheels touched down on the runway, and attempted a go-around. However, during the go-around, the flight instructor did not retract the flaps to 20 degrees, which the normal procedures require. Subsequently the airplane bounced, landed in an open area adjacent to the runway, and came to rest upright. During the accident sequence, the airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and horizontal stabilizer. The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's inadequate flare and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action and failure to maintain control of the airplane during a go-around. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's improper go-around procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13CA397
- Event ID
- 20130904X81848
- Case number
- WPR13CA397
- 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: 903a3550a5820de41b23cc68cbfd792d69b042dec5eaefe4d76bb7dfa081c537; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:44:29.437Z.