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Atlas / NTSB / CEN21LA160

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN21LA160

2021-03-17 Watkins, Colorado, United States Airport · CFO None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N786CP

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 172S

Year of manufacture

2015 · 6 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING IO-360-L2A (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20150521

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AAA710

Registrant of record

WINGS OVER TEXAS HOLDINGS LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during takeoff and the instructor pilot’s inadequate supervision of the pilot’s takeoff.

Factual narrative

The instructor pilot reported that he’d asked the pilot receiving instruction to perform a short field takeoff. During the takeoff, the pilot raised the airplane’s nose early obstructing both pilots’ view over the nose and the airplane drifted to the left. The airplane exited the left side of the runway onto wet, soft ground, nosed down striking the propeller, and then ground looped coming to a stop about 150o from the takeoff direction. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The instructor pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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).

  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
  • Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Monitoring other person-Instructor/check pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2021_CEN21LA160.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. 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 ↗