NTSB CEN25LA332 — 2025-08-21 · Air Force Academy, Colorado, United States

Current FAA registration · N1401E

Make / Model: CESSNA 172N
Year of manufacture: 1978 · 47 years old at event
Engine: LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 hp)
Seats / Engines: 4 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date: 19780601
ADS-B equipped: Yes — Mode-S A0A530

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

N1401E Cessna 172 None

Probable cause & findings

The student pilot’s failure to perform an adequate preflight inspection.

Factual narrative

The student pilot departed on a solo flight, and after takeoff, he saw the airplane’s wheel chocks hanging on the right wing strut. Due to the proximity of the chocks to the wing flaps, a no-flap landing was performed. The airplane landed without further incident. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the underside of the right wing had been struck numerous times by the wheel chocks which resulted in substantial damage to a wing rib. The flight school allowed for the storage of wheel chocks on the wing struts, then relying on the pilot to stow them inside the airplane during the preflight inspection. Following the accident, the flight school manager prohibited this practice and the chocks would be stowed inside the airplane when not in use. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

— Personnel issues-Task performance-Inspection-Preflight inspection-Student/instructed pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_CEN25LA332.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Search this event elsewhere

External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type. All research papers