punx_clever
New Member
I'm going to start this off by making a point that I'm not going to discuss who this was, where it occurred exactly, or any circumstances surrounding the incident. I also won't speculate as to what went wrong. "Just the facts, ma'am."
A student on their first solo in a C172 suddenly veered off the runway to the left about 750 feet into the takeoff roll. The plane continued across the grass and hit a berm before the taxiway apparently shearing the nose gear off. The aircraft stopped after crossing the taxiway, nose in the dirt. To the best of my knowledge, the student escaped the aircraft safely without injury. There was no engine fire. There was no obvious damage to the airport.
Just a reminder that we are engaged in a dangerous business regardless of what we are flying. All of you in or about to go through IFS should take note of the seriousness and suddenness of what happened. We are up there in these planes that are, in all respects, very safe... but mechanical or human errors can happen at any time, and we need to be ready for when, not if, they do.
A student on their first solo in a C172 suddenly veered off the runway to the left about 750 feet into the takeoff roll. The plane continued across the grass and hit a berm before the taxiway apparently shearing the nose gear off. The aircraft stopped after crossing the taxiway, nose in the dirt. To the best of my knowledge, the student escaped the aircraft safely without injury. There was no engine fire. There was no obvious damage to the airport.
Just a reminder that we are engaged in a dangerous business regardless of what we are flying. All of you in or about to go through IFS should take note of the seriousness and suddenness of what happened. We are up there in these planes that are, in all respects, very safe... but mechanical or human errors can happen at any time, and we need to be ready for when, not if, they do.
