ERA17LA261 · Cessna 172 S
Arrow Aviation Cessna 172 S · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR) to Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA261
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 S
- 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
- N612DF
- Operator
- Arrow Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR), Danbury, CTTo Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR), Danbury, CT
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot and two passengers were departing in the airplane from the 4,422-ft-long asphalt runway. A witness reported that, while still over the runway, the airplane began to lose altitude, then entered a nose-high attitude. The airplane subsequently entered a left-turning descent consistent with an aerodynamic stall. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any preimpact mechanical anomalies; although the ignition key was found in the left magneto position, the preimpact position of the key could not be determined.
Performance calculations revealed that the airplane should have used less than half the available runway distance to clear a 50-ft obstacle at maximum gross weight with flaps extended to 10°. Weight and balance calculations revealed that the airplane was operating about 59 lbs over its maximum allowable gross weight at the time of the accident, and the flaps were found in the retracted position. It is likely that the pilot noticed the airplane's degraded climb performance after takeoff and attempted to compensate by increasing the airplane's pitch attitude, which resulted in decaying airspeed, an exceedance of the critical angle of attack, and an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot's exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack during initial climb, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to operate the airplane above its maximum gross weight, which likely reduced its takeoff performance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA261
- Event ID
- 20170731X62530
- Case number
- ERA17LA261
- 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: a19e6a9f932f82afe4e57a11da2461a17fd4bbb15440c253a6c37facafe96475; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:11:27.340Z.