ERA15FA203 · Cessna 172 G
Cessna 172 G · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Finger Lakes Regional Airport (0G7) to Penn Yan Airport (PEO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15FA203
- 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
- 1 · 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 172 G
- 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
- N3969L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Finger Lakes Regional Airport (0G7), Seneca Falls, NYTo Penn Yan Airport (PEO), Penn Yan, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1966)
- 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
On the morning of the accident, the student pilot departed from his home airport and flew to two other airports before returning to his home airport. None of these cross-country flights were conducted under the supervision of a flight instructor nor was there any documentation available to show that the student was endorsed to conduct these flights. Upon reaching his home airport, the student pilot entered the traffic pattern to land on the 5,500-ft-long runway with a prevailing right quartering tailwind. A pilot-rated witness reported that he saw the airplane approach the runway "high and fast," that it was about 100 to 150 ft above the ground as it crossed over the runway threshold, and that it then appeared to "float" down the runway. He then lost sight of the airplane. Another witness noted that, after touching down near the midpoint of the runway, the airplane lifted off and reached about 50 ft above the ground, at which point, the engine power increased. The airplane then began climbing steeply and then banked left, making an arcing flightpath that continued to ground contact. Based on available evidence, the investigation was unable to determine whether the pilot was attempting to conduct a go-around following the previous landing approach, or was conducting a touch-and-go landing when the accident occurred.
Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of any mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Although fuel drained from the airplane after the accident contained water, witness statements and wreckage signatures were consistent with the engine operating normally to ground impact. The flaps were found extended 40°; however, airplane manufacturer guidance stated that during a go-around climb, the "flap setting should be reduced to 20° immediately after full power is applied" and that "flap settings of 30° to 40° are not recommended at any time for takeoff." It is likely that the inappropriate flap setting for the initial climb contributed to the student pilot's failure to maintain airplane control.
Although the student pilot's autopsy identified the presence of coronary artery disease that could have caused acute symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations, or fainting, there was no evidence of any such event occurring.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during the initial climb. Contributing to the accident was the student's inappropriate configuration of the airplane's wing flaps for the initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15FA203
- Event ID
- 20150503X30740
- Case number
- ERA15FA203
- 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: e01f851ca08f4b7aa5fb5efb7df547e84a84fd1e3b890a979d8fd24514c63fa5; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:37:38.879Z.