CEN19LA113 · Cessna 172 S
United Flight System Cessna 172 S · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH) to Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA113
- 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 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
- N494JB
- Operator
- United Flight System
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Spring, TXTo Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Austin, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 2002)
- 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 · to 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was taxiing the airplane to the runway to depart on a personal flight when the airplane veered to the right and the right main landing gear descended into a drainage ditch. The pilot and the passenger were not injured. The right horizontal stabilizer and elevator were substantially damaged.
In a postaccident statement, the pilot reported no anomalies with the wheel brake system before she began taxiing the airplane. She also reported that the tailwind during taxi caused a high groundspeed but that the airplane was “uncontrollable” via the rudder and brakes.
The airplane’s pilot operating handbook states that the groundspeed and use of brakes should be held to a minimum while taxiing, directional control should be maintained with the steerable nosewheel and the rudder, and the proper positioning of the ailerons and elevator for wind direction is required to maintain directional control and balance. Additionally, according to the FAA’s Airplane Flying Handbook, a pilot must maintain a safe taxiing speed to ensure directional control and must have the ability to recognize any potential hazards in time to avoid them and to stop or turn where and when desired without undue reliance on the wheel brakes.
Postaccident examination and testing revealed no anomalies with the airplane’s wheel brake system or the steerable nosewheel. The wind at the airport about the time of the accident was from 140° at 13 knots gusting to 21 knots. Thus, the pilot likely allowed the airplane to accelerate to an unsafe groundspeed during taxi, resulting in a loss of directional control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane directional control while taxiing at an unsafe ground speed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA113
- Event ID
- 20190401X14158
- Case number
- CEN19LA113
- 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, cause areas. 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: f2aff91b37f694acd6c37ecf53da4d4b7ee02ab3294e940105299a96ee5c9cc1; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:42:25.340Z.