ERA19LA055 · Cessna 172 L
Carolina Aviation Of Aiken Cessna 172 L · Accident while taxiing
From Aiken Regional Airport (AIK) to Grand Strand Airport (CRE)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA055
- 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 L
- 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
- N7081Q
- Operator
- Carolina Aviation Of Aiken
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aiken Regional Airport (AIK), Aiken, SCTo Grand Strand Airport (CRE), North Myrtle Beach, SC
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1972)
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was taxiing after landing when he felt a wind gust push the tail to the right and he could not correct with full right rudder. He then applied right brake, but the right brake failed. He applied both brakes to stop, but the left turn became exaggerated, and he pulled the mixture control to stop the engine. The airplane subsequently impacted another airplane parked on the ramp. Postaccident examination of the right brake by the operator revealed damage to an O-ring or packing that allowed brake fluid to leak past the piston, rendering the right brake inoperative. The brake linings of both brakes were replaced about 389 flight hours before the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the right brake while taxiing after landing, which resulted in a loss of directional control and collision with a parked airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA055
- Event ID
- 20181126X52513
- Case number
- ERA19LA055
- 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: 0df18c042bbfe12398da88bb98c8c534c18fdae64917aefe5556ef0daa8e453f; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:27:13.014Z.