22 Jun 2015: CESSNA 172 S — Aviation Adventures

22 Jun 2015: CESSNA 172 S — Aviation Adventures

No fatalities • Upperville, VA, United States

Probable cause

An inflight bird strike, which resulted in wing spar damage.

— NTSB Determination

Accident narrative

According to the student pilot, while flying en route to his home airport, the airplane sustained a bird strike to the right wing. The student pilot reported that he checked the flight controls and engine performance, and made the decision to continue the flight to his destination. He reported that during the approach he noticed that it took an abnormal amount of left aileron to maintain level flight; however, he landed the airplane without further incident. A subsequent examination of the airplane revealed that the airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing spar.

The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or anomalies prior to flight that would have prevented normal operation.

Contributing factors

  • cause Effect on equipment

Conditions

Weather
VMC, wind 270/09kt, vis 10sm

Loading the flight search…

What you can do on Flight Finder

  • Search flights between any two airports with live fares.
  • By aircraft — pick a plane model (e.g. Boeing 787, Airbus A350) and see every route it flies from your origin.
  • Route map — click any airport worldwide to explore its destinations, or draw a radius to find nearby airports.
  • Global aviation safety — aviation accident database, 5,200+ records since 1980, with map and rankings by aircraft and operator.
  • NTSB safety feed — recent U.S. aviation accidents and incidents from the official NTSB CAROL database, updated daily.

Frequently asked questions

How do I search flights by aircraft type on FlightFinder?

Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.

Which aircraft types can I filter by?

We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.

Is FlightFinder free to use?

Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.

Where does the route data come from?

Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.