ERA15CA056 · Cessna 172S
Cessna 172S · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA056
- 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 172S
- 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
- N60155
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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 performing his second solo flight, and he reported a total flying time of 45 hours. As the airplane became airborne during the initial takeoff, it "…violently veered 90 degrees to the left." He immediately applied right rudder and reduced the throttle to idle. The airplane was landed on the left side of the runway and it departed the runway surface, into the grass. It then crossed the intersecting runway. As the airplane approached a taxiway, the pilot brought it to a full stop. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector reported that the excursion resulted in a buckling of the engine firewall. The student pilot did not report any mechanical problems with the airplane at the time of the accident. A review of local wind conditions at the airport did not reveal evidence of gusts.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during the initial climb, resulting in a runway excursion and substantial damage to the engine firewall. The student pilot's lack of overall flying experience was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA056
- Event ID
- 20141120X63535
- Case number
- ERA15CA056
- 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: 9a9c10a7e8efbb598d787ab2ea546e33f903f19ce7b24e228d3ba836dc50fd80; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:56:28.316Z.