GAA16CA076 · Cessna 172 M
Cessna 172 M · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Elmdale Airpark (82TS) to Elmdale Airpark (82TS)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA076
- 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 172 M
- 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
- N9868Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elmdale Airpark (82TS), Abilene, TXTo Elmdale Airpark (82TS), Abilene, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1975)
- 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
- 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
The flight instructor reported that during a simulated power off emergency landing, the student pilot flared "too abruptly" causing the airplane to balloon about 20 feet above the ground. The flight instructor reported that the student pilot applied full power, placed the carburetor heat to the closed positioned, and "pitched up".
The flight instructor reported that he did not react to the control inputs of the student pilot "fast" enough. The airplane stalled, rotated left, and impacted the ground with the left wing.
The student pilot reported that while landing he applied back pressure on the yoke during flare, but "must have pulled back too much", causing the airplane to balloon. He reported that he attempted to allow the airplane to settle back to the runway. The student pilot reported that the flight instructor said that "he had the controls". The student pilot removed his left hand from the yoke, his feet away from the rudder pedals, and took his right hand away from the throttle. The student pilot reported that the flight instructor added full power to attempt to go-around subsequently the airplane turned left and the left wing impacted the ground, which resulted in substantial damage to left wing and fuselage.
The flight instructor reported that there were no pre-impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's abrupt control inputs during the flare, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's lack of over sight and delayed reaction while landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA076
- Event ID
- 20151214X40342
- Case number
- GAA16CA076
- 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: 074b8df80c33aa0effe181f8cc977512638aaf084f6c0e961ca6e02eb606f9b6; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:01:43.466Z.