ERA14CA375 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Valkaria Airport (X59) to Valkaria Airport (X59)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA375
- 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
- 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
- N9400E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Valkaria Airport (X59), Valkaria, FLTo Valkaria Airport (X59), Valkaria, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 35 years (built 1979)
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the student pilot, she had just landed after a local instructional flight. Her instructor completed the solo endorsement in her logbook as they taxied back to the arrival end of the runway 28. The student pilot then taxied on to runway 28 for departure. She applied full throttle and the airplane lifted off the runway normally. At approximately 500 feet above ground level the engine began to run rough and dropped to 1900 RPMs. The student pilot immediately lowered the nose of the airplane to attain best glide speed and started a left hand turn to return to the airport. She attempted to land on runway 10. Approximately 20 seconds after the engine began running rough the pilot applied the carburetor heat and then reduced the throttle to idle. The student pilot did not attempt however to increase power after the application of carburetor heat and the throttle remained in the idle position for the remainder of the approach. The pilot then applied full flaps as the airplane was descending over midfield. The airplane overflew the runway and touched down in the grass immediately off the departure end of runway 10. The airplane subsequently struck a fence and nosed over. Post accident examination of the airplane and engine showed no evidence of mechanical failure or malfunction. The engine was started and operated with no signs of failure. A review of the carburetor icing probability chart shows the aircraft was operating in conditions that were not conductive to carburetor icing at the time of the accident. The pilot had 43 total flight hours.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of speed and distance on final approach during a precautionary landing, resulting in a touchdown off the departure end of the runway and collision with terrain. A factor in the accident was a partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined in post accident testing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA375
- Event ID
- 20140806X41620
- Case number
- ERA14CA375
- 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: 0649a3771dc45c889bb45eeda8daa137db4f4dc44b43ff3c77e8c0d37db6317c; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:36:28.400Z.