| Crash location | 27.460556°N, 81.348333°W |
| Nearest city | Sebring, FL
27.495592°N, 81.440907°W 6.2 miles away |
| Tail number | N267EP |
|---|---|
| Accident date | 25 Oct 2002 |
| Aircraft type | Cessna 172N |
| Additional details: | None |
On October 25, 2002, about 1345 eastern daylight time, a Cessna 172N, N267EP, registered to Rexair Sales and Leasing, LLC., and operated by International Flight Training Academy as a Title 14 CFR Part 91 instructional flight, crashed while attempting to takeoff at Sebring Regional Airport, Sebring, Florida. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and a visual flight rules flight plan was filed. The airplane received substantial damage, and the student pilot, the sole occupant, sustained serious injuries. The flight was originating at the time of the accident.
The pilot was conducting her second cross-country flight, and she had flown the airplane from Naples, Florida, to Sebring, and had performed two or three touch-and-go landings and a full-stop landing at Sebring. She then parked the airplane at the fixed-based operator's ramp, took a rest break, and had the airplane's fuel tanks topped-off for the return trip to Naples, Florida.
Witnesses stated that the winds were light, and as they observed N267EP during the takeoff on runway 36, it yawed to the left, and they observed what appeared to them to be a premature, nose high rotation. They said the nose rose high in the air and the airplane climbed to about 50 or 60 feet, and then the nose of the airplane abruptly fell, while simultaneously turning to the left. The airplane initially hit the ground with the left wing, followed by the propeller/nose and then the right wing in a sort of a cartwheel motion. It came to rest positioned with the tail up, on its main wheels facing south. One of the witnesses who was taxiing an airplane to take off on the same runway at the time of the accident said that the maneuver looked like a hammerhead stall. Another witness, who is also a flight instructor, and who was one of the first individuals that responded to the accident scene to assist the accident pilot, stated that it looked to him as if more than 10 degrees of flaps were set on the airplane.
An FAA inspector who responded to the accident stated that postcrash examination of N267EP revealed that the elevator trim had been set to a "nose-down" position, and the flaps were extended about 10 degrees. The inspector noted no anomalies with the accident airplane.
The student pilot's premature rotation and failure to maintain airspeed during the takeoff, which resulted in an inadvertent stall, an uncontrolled descent, and an impact with the ground.