Cessna 172 N6344E accident near Johnson City, Tennessee

Probable cause

The student pilot’s excessive airspeed during the landing approach and his delayed remedial action, which resulted in the airplane striking obstacles during an aborted landing. Contributing was the pilot’s decision to land with a tailwind.

NTSB analysis

The student pilot was returning to his home airport from a cross-country solo flight. The winds were favoring the opposite direction runway, and he touched down “a little fast” with 20º of flaps extended about 1,000 feet down the 3,000-foot-long runway. He applied the brakes and the airplane veered to the right (he thought the left brake had failed). He then shut off the carburetor heat, retracted the flaps, and added power to abort the landing with about 300 feet of pavement remaining. He was able to get airborne before the end of the runway but was in ground effect. The airplane flew over a road, impacted a tree with the right wing while airborne, hit a truck, and the corner of a detached garage. The airplane then rolled a short distance, nosed over, and came to rest. The airplane’s fuselage, wings, and empennage were substantially damaged during the accident sequence. Postaccident testing revealed that both the left and right wheel brakes were functional.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for ERA21LA214 for the full record.