ERA24LA092 · Textron Aviation Inc 172 S
Epic Aviation Textron Aviation Inc 172 S · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA092
- 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
- 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
Textron Aviation Inc 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
- N321EP
- Operator
- Epic Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2021)
- 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 · from 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to start-up, the student pilot performed a preflight inspection while the flight instructor reviewed the airplane maintenance discrepancy sheet. The flight instructor noted that the airplane had recently been written up for inconsistent right brake pressure. Maintenance personnel resolved the discrepancy by tightening the pilot side brake pedal and returned the airplane to service. Everything appeared visually normal during the subsequent preflight inspection, and the student and instructor performed an engine runup with no braking problems noted. During the subsequent taxi to the runway, while attempting to negotiate a turn, the right brake was not effective despite both the student and the instructor applying brake pedal pressure. The airplane went off the taxiway and ultimately struck a tree resulting in substantial damage to the horizontal stabilizer. A review of photographs taken by an FAA inspector of the disassembled braking system components revealed that the right brake master cylinder o-ring appeared worn and possibly had a flat spot. It is possible that the wear/flat-spot of the o-ring could have allowed fluid to bypass it, which would have resulted in the inconsistent brake operation described by the pilots.
Probable cause
A failure of the right brake during taxi, which resulted in a taxiway excursion and collision with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA092
- Event ID
- 20240122193688
- Case number
- ERA24LA092
- 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: 0abd65fc9198dec00d7b066fee6bfda977250feea58d44549c8245678f010342; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:27:11.390Z.