GAA16CA044 · Cessna 172G G
Cessna 172G G · Accident: wildlife encounter (non-bird) during landing
From Niagara Falls International Airport (IAG) to Olcott-Newfane Airport (D80)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA044
- 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 172G 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
- N3679L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Niagara Falls International Airport (IAG), Niagara Falls, NYTo Olcott-Newfane Airport (D80), Newfane, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1965)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Wildlife encounter (non-bird)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the landing roll he observed two deer walk onto the runway. He reported that he avoided the deer by adding power and applying back pressure to the yoke. After he "cleared" the deer, the airplane "dropped" back onto the runway and began to porpoise. The pilot reported that he did not have enough airspeed to take off, and there was not enough remaining runway to stop prior to impacting the trees at the end of the runway.
The pilot reported that there were no pre-impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings.
Probable cause
An evasive maneuver during landing to avoid deer on the runway, which resulted in a runway overrun and collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA044
- Event ID
- 20151110X41619
- Case number
- GAA16CA044
- 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: 4b9d46820f0a47a543afcfada66c7657529a5e01136f10385157ac6838a65765; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:57:44.759Z.