ERA14LA147 · Cessna 172D
Gone Broke Cessna 172D · Accident: aircraft wake turbulence encounter on approach
From Roscoe Field (82J) to H L Sonny Callahan Airport (CQF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA147
- 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
- N2755U
- Operator
- Gone Broke
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roscoe Field (82J), Pensacola, FLTo H L Sonny Callahan Airport (CQF), Fairhope, AL
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1963)
- 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
- Aircraft wake turbulence encounter
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane entered the downwind leg of the traffic pattern behind a large helicopter and that he followed the helicopter closely in the traffic pattern. While on short final approach, the airplane remained behind the helicopter as the helicopter was terminating its approach about three-quarters down the runway. When the airplane was about 30 ft above the approach end of the runway, it banked and pitched suddenly, and it then impacted the ground. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation nor were any found during a postaccident examination of the wreckage. A simulation modeling the helicopter's trailing vortex-generating tendencies showed that vortices of significant strength were likely present at the airplane's reported position at the time of the upset. If the pilot had maintained adequate separation from the large helicopter during the approach to landing, the airplane likely would not have encountered the trailing vortices that caused the loss of airplane control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate separation from a helicopter during the approach to landing, which resulted in an encounter with the helicopter’s trailing vortices, a loss of airplane control, and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA147
- Event ID
- 20140309X20356
- Case number
- ERA14LA147
- 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: bef66755d3354a3fbd6b415225a276768463b41977f70e410956fda506495f93; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:22:52.147Z.