CEN16LA228 · Cessna 172S
Air America Flight Center Cessna 172S · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Deming Municipal Airport (DMN) to Fort Stockton Pecos County Airport (FST)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA228
- 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
- N21767
- Operator
- Air America Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deming Municipal Airport (DMN), Deming, NMTo Fort Stockton Pecos County Airport (FST), Fort Stockton, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2004)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 pilots were departing on a cross-country flight. A witness who saw the airplane shortly after takeoff observed the airplane turn back toward the airport, enter a steep right bank, and descend toward the ground. The airplane impacted terrain in a nose-down, right-wing-low attitude. Witnesses on a golf course next to the airport reported that airplane's engine was running at the time of impact. Neither pilot has any memory of the takeoff or the crash.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of a preimpact mechanical malfunction or failure of the flight control system or the engine that would have precluded normal operation. The propeller exhibited damage that was consistent with the engine producing power at impact.
Calculations indicate that the airplane was at least 131 lbs over the maximum takeoff weight before the flight. The required takeoff distance and climb performance could not be determined because the airplane's weight exceeded the pilot operating handbook's performance chart parameters. However, overall airplane flight performance is reduced as the airplane's weight increases, resulting in a higher takeoff speed, longer takeoff run, reduced rate and angle of climb, and higher aerodynamic stalling speed. Additionally, the density altitude was about 7,736 ft at the time of the accident, which likely further increased the takeoff distance required for liftoff and adversely affected the engine power available and the climb rate.
Given the available information, the pilots did not maintain adequate control of the airplane during the initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude.
Probable cause
The pilots’ failure to maintain adequate control of the airplane during the initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude. Contributing to the accident was the operation of the airplane above its maximum takeoff weight at a high density altitude at the time of the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA228
- Event ID
- 20160623X84139
- Case number
- CEN16LA228
- 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: 1190b3a79771a847db5323df7004a628bf4b2353e43f19137884f51872e14837; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:33:03.249Z.