GAA17CA051 · Cessna 152
Kingdom Air Corps Cessna 152 · Accident during takeoff
From King Ranch Airport (AK59) to Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA051
- 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
- N488E
- Operator
- Kingdom Air Corps
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King Ranch Airport (AK59), Chickaloon, AKTo Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ), Palmer, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that during a soft field takeoff on a private 1,800-foot turf airstrip, with 10 degrees of flaps, the airplane wheels lifted off the ground so he relaxed back pressure on the yoke, and the airplane settled back onto the ground. He further reported that after the airplane lifted off and settled back onto the ground a second time, he decided to abort the takeoff by reducing the power to idle, but the airplane lifted off the ground momentarily and settled onto the ground for a third time. The pilot firmly applied the brakes, but the airplane overran the runway.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the firewall.
The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
The flight instructor further reported that he admits that he was late in deciding to abort the takeoff.
The Federal Aviation Administration has published the Airplane Flying Handbook FAA-H-8083-3B (2016). This handbook discusses pilot actions after liftoff during soft field takeoffs and states in part:
After the airplane becomes airborne, the pilot should gently lower the nose with the wheels clear of the surface to allow the airplane to accelerate to VY, or VX if obstacles must be cleared. Immediately after the airplane becomes airborne and while it accelerates, the pilot should be aware that, while transitioning out of the ground effect area, the airplane will have a tendency to settle back onto the surface. An attempt to climb prematurely or too steeply may cause the airplane to settle back to the surface as a result of the loss of ground effect. During the transition out of the ground effect area, the pilot should not attempt to climb out of ground effect before reaching the sufficient climb airspeed, as this may result in the airplane being unable to climb further, even with full power applied. Therefore, it is essential that the airplane remain in ground effect until at least VX is reached. This requires a good understanding of the control pressures, aircraft responses, visual clues, and acceleration characteristics of that particular airplane.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's delay in aborting the takeoff from a turf runway, which resulted in a runway overrun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA051
- Event ID
- 20161031X91445
- Case number
- GAA17CA051
- 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: b35082e478bde141ce4af39162f428dcbc0acbb25dab2c00e11a5ed8e0b523fa; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:48:02.319Z.