CEN16LA259 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Denton Enterprise Airport (DTO) to Bridgeport Municipal Airport (XBP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA259
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N5331B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denton Enterprise Airport (DTO), Denton, TXTo Bridgeport Municipal Airport (XBP), Bridgeport, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
While performing touch-and-go landings, the private pilot noticed that the ground run was longer than usual and that the airplane had difficultly climbing. He saw that the flaps were still at 30° despite the flap handle being in the "up" position. The pilot then maneuvered to land, but the airplane was higher than normal while approaching the runway. He slipped the airplane down, and the airplane floated down the runway. After the airplane touched down near the end of the runway, the pilot applied the brakes, but he then lost directional control, and the airplane exited the side of the runway. The nosewheel got stuck in the soil, and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest inverted.
Examination of the flap assembly revealed that the flap tube assembly on the flap actuator motor was fully extended and bound. The tube assembly was freed mechanically, and the flap actuator motor was then able to move the tube assembly normally. Further examination did not reveal a reason why the tube assembly had become bound. No anomalies were noted with the jackscrew or the flap actuator motor.
It is likely that the pilot was confused by the airplane's performance with 30° of flaps while on the approach because it was not what he was used to and that the bound flaps prevented him from getting the airplane to achieve sufficient airspeed for a proper approach and landing, which led to the unstabilized approach and long landing. The pilot's subsequent uneven application of braking resulted in the runway excursion.
Probable cause
The pilot's unstabilized approach and uneven braking due to insufficient runway remaining, which resulted in a loss of directional control during landing. Contributing to the accident was the bound flap jackscrew, which jammed the flaps and led to the pilot’s inability to operate the airplane normally.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA259
- Event ID
- 20160708X91232
- Case number
- CEN16LA259
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-07-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1f4f3cc4f910c47dc7922abe2b6440623ceb8434ba7e6112343539453bd889a7; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:38:14.351Z.