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ERA15CA126 · Cessna 152

7 Feb 2015 · Shirley, NY, United States

Mid Island Air SVC Cessna 152 · Accident: hard landing

From Brookhaven Calabro Airport (HWV) to Brookhaven Calabro Airport (HWV)

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Event

NTSB case
ERA15CA126
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 152

Aircraft type
Cessna 152
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
N5416B
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Brookhaven Calabro Airport (HWV), Shirley, NYTo Brookhaven Calabro Airport (HWV), Shirley, NY
Aircraft age
About 36 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
Hard landing
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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

According to the student pilot, he was performing takeoffs and landings in the local traffic pattern. While on short final, he flared too high, the airplane stalled, then landed hard and bounced. He attempted a go-around; however, the airplane veered to the left and struck a show bank. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector reported that the left wing and engine firewall sustained substantial damage. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical problems with the airplane at the time of the accident.

Probable cause

The student pilot's initiation of the flare while too high above the runway, resulting in an aerodynamic stall, hard landing, and loss of directional control.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ERA15CA126
Event ID
20150211X83331
Case number
ERA15CA126
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, coordinates. 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: cfb24dc7031d8c165808d124433af58aaa0994485043625239c1eee749c1cc75; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:04:56.828Z.