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Atlas / NTSB / CEN13CA153

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN13CA153

2013-02-08 Herington, Kansas, United States Airport · KHRU None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N88NG

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 177RG

Year of manufacture

1977 · 36 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING IO-360-A1B6D (200 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19770613

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AC1CAF

Registrant of record

BAKKE DALE W

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed during the approach, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.

Factual narrative

The pilot and two passengers were on a cross-country flight; about two hours into the flight they decided to land for a rest stop. The pilot reported that he saw some breaks in the clouds below him, so he descended to land at a nearby airport. When the pilot saw the runway, he was too close to land, so he circled to the right for a better approach. The pilot stated that while turning onto the downwind leg he failed to keep enough airspeed and stalled the airplane. He added that he didn’t have time to extend the landing gear. The airplane impacted a muddy wheat field and came to rest in an upright position. Examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to the engine firewall and fuselage, aft of the door posts. The pilot and two passengers were about 2 hours into a cross-country flight when they decided to land for a rest stop. The pilot reported that he saw some breaks in the clouds below him, so he descended to land at a nearby airport. When the pilot saw the runway, he realized that he was too close to land, so he circled for a better approach. The pilot stated that while turning onto the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, he failed to maintain airspeed and stalled the airplane. The airplane impacted a muddy wheat field with the landing gear retracted and came to rest in an upright position. Examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to the engine firewall and fuselage. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-(general)-(general)-Pilot - C
  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Airspeed-Not attained/maintained - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2013_CEN13CA153.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗