FTW97LA041 · Cessna 172RG
Spartan School of Aeronautics Cessna 172RG · Accident: gear collapsed during landing
From Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA041
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172RG
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N9520B
- Operator
- Spartan School of Aeronautics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Gear collapsed
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Fractured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness stated that the airplane 'flared smoothly and touched down with what appeared to be no side load.' As the aircraft settled onto the runway surface, the right main gear collapsed, and the aircraft subsequently skidded off the right side of the runway. During examination of the right main landing gear, it was discovered that the gear pivot assembly was fractured adjacent to the spline. It has not been determined as to whether the fracture occurred during gear retraction, extension, or upon contact with the runway. According to maintenance records, Cessna Service Bulletin, SE390.1, April 20, 1990, was applicable to this aircraft and was complied with. The Service Bulletin's purpose was to inspect main landing gear pivot assemblies for cracks in the spline area. The pivot assembly that failed, P/N 2441100-9, had a total time of 1,611.8 hours. Visual inspection of the fractured surface showed evidence of overload, however a small area on the outer portion of the surface had several small cracks bordering the edge.
Probable cause
The failure of the main landing gear pivot gear assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA041
- Event ID
- 20001208X07032
- Case number
- FTW97LA041
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c42cb00949302262d53b9c0f600d0fcac5e0b9f833464fdb4bbd80ce5cfbb7cb; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:50:37.888Z.