ERA16CA303 · Cessna 152G
University Flying Club Cessna 152G · Accident: abnormal runway contact on approach
From Augusta State Airport (AUG) to Augusta State Airport (AUG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16CA303
- 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 152G
- 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
- N4916B
- Operator
- University Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Augusta State Airport (AUG), Augusta, METo Augusta State Airport (AUG), Augusta, ME
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was taking his private pilot checkride and was demonstrating a short-field landing. During the landing, the wind was gusting, and he decided to go around. During the go-around, the left wing dropped and struck the runway. The designated pilot examiner (DPE) took control of the airplane and completed the go-around. He then returned control of the airplane to the pilot, and the pilot then performed another short-field landing with a full stop. After the full-stop landing, he taxied to the fixed-base operator (FBO) at the airport, and he and the DPE exited the airplane and went into the FBO to complete the paperwork for the check ride. After the DPE had completed the paperwork, the pilot returned to the airplane intending to fly back to his home airport. During his preflight inspection, he noticed that the wing was damaged. Examination of the wing revealed that both wing spars were substantially damaged.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to compensate for the gusting wind conditions during a short-field landing and the designated pilot examiner's delayed remedial action, which resulted in the wing tip contacting the runway during the go-around.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16CA303
- Event ID
- 20160829X13020
- Case number
- ERA16CA303
- 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: 61ec4ac981b4fd9e93163fe06f70f1831fe75dcc3fa5a7a7dc262701842ea0ed; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:12:03.415Z.