WPR25LA297 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From Coeur D'Alene Airport - Pappy Boyington Field (KCOE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR25LA297
- 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
- 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
- N7373A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coeur D'Alene Airport - Pappy Boyington Field (KCOE), Hayden, IDTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1956)
- 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 · to 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- 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 student pilot had just completed a series of takeoffs and landings with his flight instructor in preparation for a solo flight. After landing, the instructor exited the airplane and the student then taxied to the assigned runway threshold and held short of the runway, per the tower controller’s instructions. While stationary on the taxiway, a strong wind gust lifted the airplane’s tail and right wing. The student maintained pressure on the brake pedals and held the control yoke fully aft. However, the airplane nosed over, and came to rest inverted on the taxiway. The student noted that the gust was significantly stronger than the prevailing winds. As a result of the impact, the airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, wings, rudder, and vertical stabilizer. The student pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The reported wind around the time of the accident was 13 kts out of the southwest, gusting to 17 kts. The airplane was oriented and subjected to a quartering tailwind.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s inability to maintain control of the airplane during a sudden wind gust resulting in the airplane coming to rest inverted.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR25LA297
- Event ID
- 20250929201736
- Case number
- WPR25LA297
- 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: 89d91d44b2dc9926cc6da890338b02fd6571fa3bcb681d36ac0f52b10d21aebc; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:23:32.333Z.