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Atlas / NTSB / WPR23LA124

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR23LA124

2023-03-09 Van Nuys, California, United States Airport · VNY None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N73726

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 172N

Year of manufacture

1976 · 47 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19760831

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A9E7C9

Registrant of record

WINGS OVER TEXAS HOLDINGS LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilots failure to maintain directional control during takeoff.

Factual narrative

The student pilot reported she had been practicing touch and go landings. During the takeoff roll of her second touch and go, the pilot noticed the flaps were fully extended. She retracted the flaps and subsequently lost directional control of the airplane. The airplane veered and exited to the left side of the runway and struck a sign before it nosed over and came to rest inverted, which resulted in substantial damage to both wings. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures 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).

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

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2023_WPR23LA124.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 (icing). 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 ↗