CEN25LA036 · Cessna 152
Wings Over Texas Holdings Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From WML · Mineral Wells, TX to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN25LA036
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N49785
- Operator
- Wings Over Texas Holdings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From WML · Mineral Wells, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1979)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot flew a cross-country flight to an airport where he performed six landings. He then flew to another airport and completed two touch and go landings before attempting a third. During approach for the third touch and go landing, the student pilot noticed the airplane was too high on the downwind to base and base to final leg turns. To reduce altitude, he increased the airplane’s descent rate to 900-1,000 ft per minute with wing flaps at 30o. He planned on reestablishing the airplane on the final approach glide path but was too late doing so. He reduced the airplane’s decent rate to 600-700 ft per minute and continued the approach. He said the airplane had a high descent rate, which he felt could result in a very firm landing. He pitched the airplane up a little too much during the landing flare, and the stall warning sounded. He then initiated a go-around out of concern that the landing would result in an unsafe and hard landing. During the go-around, the stall warning sounded again and there was a lot of drag from the wing flaps. The airplane drifted away from the runway surface due to left turning tendences and impacted the terrain. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces to the wings and fuselage. The student pilot stated that there was no mechanical malfunction/failure of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s delayed go-around from an unstabilized approach and failure to attain/maintain control during the go-around that resulted in an impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN25LA036
- Event ID
- 20241109195465
- Case number
- CEN25LA036
- 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: aeba4837f860300f964c591d6039cb170c0e56e384613c05d704a321b422c7c3; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:27:28.737Z.