Cessna 172M N1409U accident near Centralia, Illinois

Probable cause

The pilot's exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack during takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin.

NTSB analysis

The pilot was conducting a takeoff for a supervised instructional flight. During the rotation, the right wing dropped. The pilot “turned the yoke to the left,” but the right wing continued to drop, which increased the bank angle. The pilot stated that he applied back pressure and said to himself, "I'm done." Subsequently, the airplane impacted the ground on the west side of the runway resulting in substantial damage to the empennage, fuselage, and both wings.

A witness, who was a flight instructor, reported that he was taxiing an airplane parallel to the runway from which the accident airplane took off. He stated that the airplane had a “very short ground roll” and a “nose high attitude” on takeoff. He watched the nose of the airplane continue to pitch up, and when the airplane was between about 150 and 200 ft above ground level, the right wing dropped “quickly,” the nose pitched down, and the airplane began to spin to the right before it impacted the ground.

The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Examination of the airplane revealed that the empennage had separated partially from the fuselage, that both wings exhibited aft accordion crushing, and that the engine was crushed aft into the fuselage.

Given the flight instructor’s description of the accident sequence and the airplane damage, the pilot likely exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for CEN18LA092 for the full record.