ERA14CA291 · Cessna 172B
Cessna 172B · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Capital City Airport (FFT) to Capital City Airport (FFT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA291
- 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 172B
- 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
- N7540X
- Operator
- Cline James M
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Capital City Airport (FFT), Frankfort, KYTo Capital City Airport (FFT), Frankfort, KY
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1960)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the student pilot, he was attempting a touch-and-go landing on runway 25, with a strong crosswind out of the north. The airplane touched down on the left main gear first, and the wind turned the airplane 45 degrees away from the runway heading. He attempted to regain directional control; however, he observed parked airplanes and a fueling station ahead. As the airplane departed the runway onto the grass, he attempted a go around. After becoming airborne, the nose gear and the left wing collided with a hill and the airplane bounced. The airplane stalled and came down on the nose and right wing tip before coming to a stop. A post-accident examination of the wreckage confirmed substantial damage to the firewall, both wings, and the aft fuselage. The pilot reported no pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing in crosswind conditions, resulting in a loss of control and runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA291
- Event ID
- 20140617X75803
- Case number
- ERA14CA291
- 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: 2efc097ea2c940693ddc43863694e72ee94e2b8ea46bdc26cde9aa3403c75e19; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:06:05.931Z.