CEN21LA029 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Lloyd Stearman Field (1K1) to Strother Field (WLD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA029
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- 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
- N5910A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lloyd Stearman Field (1K1), Benton, KSTo Strother Field (WLD), Winfield, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 64 years (built 1956)
- 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 · rejected 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
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and his passenger had landed the airplane in a friend’s off-airport field. After a brief visit, the pilot preflighted the airplane, started the engine, and proceeded to take off. About halfway down the field, the pilot realized he was not going to get off the ground in time and elected to abort the takeoff. The airplane struck a terrace and bounced into the air. As the end of the field approached, the pilot tried to settle the airplane back on the ground. The airplane struck a fence and nosed over, coming to rest inverted. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing, left wing strut, and vertical stabilizer. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to determine the airplane’s takeoff performance from an off-airport field which resulted in an aborted takeoff and impact with a fence and terrain. Contributing to the accident was the delayed aborted takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA029
- Event ID
- 20201026102194
- Case number
- CEN21LA029
- 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, 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: d94536fab955d3ed8741e8a925fd78126ef1bf3d86c40a89bc79db0b0c203c9e; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:17:39.770Z.