WPR24LA078 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From McClellan Airfield (MCC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA078
- 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 172L
- 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
- N7250Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan Airfield (MCC), Sacramento, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1972)
- 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
- Landing
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the landing roll, he applied the brakes to slow down; however, the left brake did not function properly, and the airplane veered to the right of the runway. The pilot attempted aerodynamic braking and used full left rudder in an attempt to return the airplane to the runway centerline. The airplane continued to the right down an embankment, nosed over, and came to rest inverted. Review of accident site photographs showed impressions from all three-landing gear in the dirt adjacent to the runway, with the right landing gear showing a more pronounced indentation in the dirt. due to heavy braking on the right side it is likely the right brake locked up. A postaccident examination of the brakes revealed improper retaining bolts securing the brake calipers; however, both brakes functioned normally. No other mechanical anomalies were found that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
Loss of control during the landing roll due to a malfunctioning brake for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA078
- Event ID
- 20240122193693
- Case number
- WPR24LA078
- 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: 0b4870c2b9ae529df2dd92da958f8c1ce88fe3a4546396c8176ec7ce16823e8c; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:27:29.814Z.