FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

CEN14CA055 · Cessna 172N N

2 Nov 2013 · Loveland, CO, United States

Low Pressure Aviation Cessna 172N N · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing

From Northern Colorado Regional Airport (KFNL) to Northern Colorado Regional Airport (KFNL)

Report a problem

Event

NTSB case
CEN14CA055
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 172N N

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
N6303E
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Northern Colorado Regional Airport (KFNL), Loveland, COTo Northern Colorado Regional Airport (KFNL), Loveland, CO
Aircraft age
About 35 years (built 1978)
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
System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
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 systems

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The flight instructor and pilot receiving instruction were landing a tailwheel-equipped airplane. The instructor reported that that the after touchdown the airplane veered to the right. He took control of the airplane and applied full left rudder and left brake. The airplane tracked straight for a moment before it turned right and departed the runway. The left main landing gear collapsed and the left wing impacted the ground. Examination of the airplane's right brake rotor revealed heat damage (bluing) of the rotor and substantial damage to the airplane's wing and fuselage. The instructed noted that the other pilot did not appear to make any control inputs that would have resulted in a right turn.

Probable cause

A dragging right brake, which resulted in an un-commanded right turn, and subsequent ground loop.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CEN14CA055
Event ID
20131115X40128
Case number
CEN14CA055
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: ec0390baff1548d64bada583eda5d2635048924419410c0cb53763c6bda6d7aa; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:07:29.583Z.