CEN16LA246 · Cessna 172 M
JB Aviation Cessna 172 M · Accident: landing area undershoot
From Galt Field (10C) to Galt Field (10C)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA246
- 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
- N6576H
- Operator
- JB Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Galt Field (10C), Wonder Lake, ILTo Galt Field (10C), Wonder Lake, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 41 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
- 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
- Landing area undershoot
- 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 › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an instructional flight, the student pilot was landing the airplane. As the flight instructor observed the student's approach, he noted that the approach path was too low, so he prompted the student to add more engine power. The instructor then diverted his attention to a radio call with another airplane and did not monitor the student's approach path. When the instructor realized that the approach path was too low to make the runway, there was insufficient time for him to intervene before the airplane landed short of the runway. The instructor reported no mechanical malfunctions with the airplane before the accident
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate supervision and lack of remedial action due to his diverted attention to a radio call, which resulted in the airplane landing short of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA246
- Event ID
- 20160706X05254
- Case number
- CEN16LA246
- 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: 88c50be5e9e208707d4d2dd852a3932428e2808e2c05e451af81155685992be5; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:37:25.567Z.