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ERA13CA307

2013-06-28 · Okeechobee, Florida, United States · Minor · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport OBE

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The student pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during a go-around.

Factual narrative

In preparation for landing during a solo cross country flight, the pilot configured the airplane with full flaps and reduced engine power nearly to idle. On landing, the airplane touched down hard and bounced. After electing to perform a go-around, the pilot retracted one notch of flaps and added full power, but the airplane did not climb. While in flight the airplane turned left, departed the runway and continued through a fence until it impacted a palm tree, flipped over and came to rest resulting in substantial damage to the wings. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that could have precluded this operation. In preparation for landing during a solo cross country flight, the pilot configured the airplane with full flaps and reduced engine power nearly to idle. On landing, the airplane touched down hard and bounced. After electing to perform a go-around, the pilot retracted one notch of flaps and added full power, but the airplane did not climb. While in flight the airplane turned left, departed the runway and continued through a fence until it impacted a palm tree, flipped over and came to rest resulting in substantial damage to the wings. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that could have precluded this operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained - C
  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Student pilot - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2013_ERA13CA307.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around). All research papers