Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 84.91; Flight Crew Total 195.9
Confusion; Situational Awareness; Time Pressure; Troubleshooting; Distraction
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control; Ground Excursion Taxiway
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Aircraft
The plan was to fly to ZZZ - [Pilot Flying] and [Pilot Not Flying] in right seat for time building. We did preflight. Before taxiing; I tested my brakes and they worked fine; no problem staying on centerline. [Pilot Monitoring] did not test his brakes; as he was not PIC. I pressed on the left rudder to turn off of Mike onto Juliet to go to [Runway] XXL and the plane did not respond. We were going straight instead of turning; so I added some left brake to help the turn. This is when I noticed we had no control over the rudders/break. There was no pressure on the break and the plane was not responding. I cut the power and tried the breaks and nothing happened. I tried steering the plane off to November; as at this point; I knew we would going to crash. Our right tire dipped into the ditch and took our plane into the main part of the grass. [Pilot Not Flying] then cut the mixture; and I called Ground Control and we were at a complete stop at that point.
Leisure flight from to ZZZ airport. Preflight done as routinely; PIC checked the pedals and brakes for pressure; requested VFR flight following and taxi instructions were given. PIC taxied while pilot in the right seat; [Pilot Not Flying]; was looking for charts and airport diagrams for destination of flight. While taxiing before entering the airport controlled area; brakes were lost and tailwind sped up the airplane whose direction was towards a ditch. PIC tried to apply brakes and steer to the left with no positive control and pilot on the right seat tried to stop with pedals but were loose and had no effect in that instance. Right main wheel hit ditch [steering] aircraft towards the grass to the right; broke; and stopped the aircraft from moving further. Mixture; master and mags were turned off before evacuating. Right part of the horizontal stabilizer and right main were bent upon impact as well as a dent in the right wing leading edge. Problem was caused because left brake failed and directional control was lost. Brake pressure was reported for the right seat on a past flight but issue apparently wasn't addressed as needed since aircraft had been flown regularly without mayor problems. To stop recurrence; pilots should be aware of reported issues and keep skepticism even though it's a small things such as just the left brake on the other seat feeling little loose because even though it was checked and flown just half hour before things can go wrong in seconds.
C172 pilots reported loosing rudder control and brakes during taxi.