CEN26LA007 · Cessna R172 K
Cessna R172 K · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Central Illinois Regional Airport at Bloomington-Normal (KBMI) to Herb Tautz Airport (LL07)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA007
- 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
Cessna R172 K
- 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
- N7354V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Central Illinois Regional Airport at Bloomington-Normal (KBMI), Bloomington, ILTo Herb Tautz Airport (LL07), Mt Carroll, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 48 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 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was attempting to land at the private airfield with a turf strip. A pilot on the ground had radioed to the pilot that the wind was estimated at 5 to 7 knots. The pilot reported that while on approach to land to the east with the flaps fully extended, the wind had increased to 10 knots, and the airplane was being pushed towards the north of the runway. The pilot performed a go around and attempted to gain airspeed to begin a climb. The pilot lost aircraft control as the wind picked up the right wing and turned the airplane to the north. The airplane entered a nose down descent until it impacted the ground. A postimpact fire destroyed the airplane. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The nearest weather reporting station reported a variable wind at 7 knots prior to the accident. After the accident, wind was reported from the southwest at 7 knots gusting 17 knots and was variable between 170° and 270°.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain aircraft control during a go around in gusty wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA007
- Event ID
- 20251006201786
- Case number
- CEN26LA007
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: e672d7fc4a6ad99b7eece286259e3b571e0c22c32a7251315886be82920d3d8b; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:25:49.992Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. Narrative states a postimpact fire destroyed the airplane.