CEN14FA453 · Cessna 172R
T&G Flying Club Cessna 172R · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Cuyahoga County Airport (CGF) to Cuyahoga County Airport (CGF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14FA453
- 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
- 4 · 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 172R
- 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
- N4207P
- Operator
- T & G Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cuyahoga County Airport (CGF), Willoughby Hills, OHTo Cuyahoga County Airport (CGF), Willoughby Hills, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and three passengers boarded the airplane for a local flight at night. The controller cleared the flight for takeoff and observed the airplane lift off about 2,000 feet down the runway. Shortly after liftoff, the pilot contacted the controller and reported that the airplane was not "climbing fast" and that he wanted to make a left turn to return to the airport. The controller approved the left turn and observed the airplane begin a left turn and descend to impact with the terrain. A postimpact fire ensued. Examination of the accident site indicated that the airplane impacted in a steep descent. The witness observations and the impact geometry are consistent with the pilot failing to maintain adequate airspeed while turning to return to the airport, resulting in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall. A postaccident examination of the airplane and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have prevented normal operation of the aircraft. Weight and balance calculations showed that the airplane was between 93.6 and 165.6 pounds over maximum gross weight at the time of the accident. The decreased takeoff climb performance reported by the pilot was likely due to the airplane's over gross weight condition.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane while returning to the airport immediately after takeoff, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and entering an aerodynamic stall during the turn. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's inadequate preflight planning, which resulted in the airplane being over maximum gross weight and its subsequent decrease in takeoff climb performance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14FA453
- Event ID
- 20140825X32653
- Case number
- CEN14FA453
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-08-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 12ce4b4d14642c348805b9d091b9f17a085a902195d1c0198174b7c032d42889; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:24:36.422Z.