ERA21LA057 · Cessna 172 S
Chapel Hill Flying Club Cessna 172 S · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA057
- 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 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
- N53587
- Operator
- Chapel Hill Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 2003)
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that prior to takeoff, he was aware of a left crosswind of about 5 knots and compensated by applying extra left aileron. During the takeoff roll about 45 to 50 knots, the airplane started to veer to the left. The pilot stated that the airplane, “felt like it had lifted off the ground” in a gradual left roll and he was unable to correct with right aileron or sufficient rudder. Once the airplane departed the runway, he reduced the power and applied the brakes, but the airplane skidded down an embankment and collided with a hill. The impact separated the engine from the mounts and the nose landing gear was sheared off which caused substantial damage to the fuselage. The pilot reported that he likely had more left aileron than was necessary for the crosswind at the beginning of the takeoff roll, and he did not reduce the control application as the airspeed increased. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of directional control during takeoff in crosswind conditions, which resulted in a runway excursion and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA057
- Event ID
- 20201130102351
- Case number
- ERA21LA057
- 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: 98390b5e4cf3411c00072016dd829e994ad008457c48b1ef787e98fc051e492a; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:26:21.624Z.