ERA23FA200 · Cessna 172 N
Cessna 172 N · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23FA200
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 N
- 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
- N734GB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 › 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 accident occurred during what was likely the student pilot’s first instructional flight. According to ADS-B data, the airplane was on final approach to the runway for landing in gusty wind conditions, when the accident occurred. The airplane’s calculated airspeed during the final approach was decelerating, and about 150 ft from the runway threshold, it was about 18 knots above its published stall speed given its configuration. The airplane subsequently impacted the ground about 1 ft from the edge of the runway in a near-vertical nose-down, left-wing-low attitude and came to rest inverted. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the damage signatures observed on the wreckage were consistent with a relatively low energy impact, with the majority of the damage being to the forward portion of the airframe. The engine and propeller were compressed aft and up into the fuselage. The flaps were found extended to the 40° position. No evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures were identified that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane. The observed impact signatures were indicative of the airplane encountering an aerodynamic stall at low altitude. Postaccident toxicological testing showed that the student pilot had used the antidepressant medication venlafaxine. This medication and some conditions it may be used to treat have some potential to impair performance. However, considering the accident circumstances, including the student pilot’s limited baseline piloting skill and experience, his limited flight safety responsibilities on the first instructional flight, and the presence of the qualified flight instructor, it is unlikely that the student pilot’s venlafaxine use, or any associated underlying condition, contributed to the accident. Given the decelerating airspeed trend observed in the recorded data and the impact attitude of the airplane, it is likely that the flight instructor did not ensure that sufficient airspeed was maintained and the airplane’s critical angle of attack was exceeded, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall while on final approach to land.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at an altitude too low for recovery.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23FA200
- Event ID
- 20230418107083
- Case number
- ERA23FA200
- 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: 2b5fc1a27c9b3227183f3c5e202f290cc0fdf50a348447a5d8d879a926dc13d0; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:58:56.073Z.