N6148Q

On August 17, 1999, approximately 1609 Pacific daylight time, a Cessna 152, N6148Q, registered to Kennewick Aircraft Services, Inc., and being flown by a student pilot, incurred substantial damage when the aircraft nosed over following a loss of control on takeoff at the Vista airport, Kennewick, Washington. The student pilot was uninjured. Visual meteorological conditions existed and a VFR flight plan had been filed. The flight, which was the student's first solo cross country, was to have been operated under 14CFR91, and was destined for Yakima, Washington.

The student pilot was interviewed shortly after the accident by an air traffic controller assigned to the Federal Aviation Administration's control tower at Pasco. He provided the following written statement: "As I approached 50 knots the plane was taking off as speed increased. I had a cross wind correction in for the slight cross wind and then a cross wind gust came at me and made my left wing come up and the right wing hit the ground and made my nose go down to the ground and it hit and I did an end over end flip."

Winds at Pasco airport, five nautical miles northeast of the Kennewick airport, were out of the northwest averaging approximately 10 knots during the afternoon of the accident.

The student pilot later reported on NTSB Form 6120.1/2 (attached) that "I was taking off on runway 02 with no winds shown on the wind sock. As I approached my takeoff speed and as [I] prepared the start [of] my rotation a strong cross wind came from my left making the airplane roll and my right wing hit the runway. I pulled the throttle and then my nose went to the ground and then I flipped end over end over the nose."

The student pilot reported a total of 25.7 hours of flight experience at the time of the accident of which 6.1 hours were pilot-in-command.