GAA19CA412 · Cessna 172 S
Christiansen Aviation Cessna 172 S · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ) to Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA412
- 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
- N35585
- Operator
- Christiansen Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ), Saint Augustine, FLTo Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ), Saint Augustine, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 in flight
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that he had demonstrated a simulated engine failure and recovery at altitude to the pilot under instruction, and he subsequently asked the pilot to perform a simulated engine failure and recovery. The instructor allowed the pilot to descend over an open field, and he recalled instructing the pilot to "recover" and abort the landing about 200 ft above ground level. However, the pilot failed to do so, and the flight instructor took the controls. The airplane subsequently stalled, impacted terrain, and nosed over. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the engine mounts. The instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot under instruction's failure to follow the flight instructor’s directions and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action and subsequent exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA412
- Event ID
- 20190714X02647
- Case number
- GAA19CA412
- 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: 60e07a6eddafaa62711885fe12088144ee1543064f3c720a32c5d2986105b0bb; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:24:50.901Z.