LAX97LA095 · Cessna 172RG
Long Beach Flying Club Cessna 172RG · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to AJO
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA095
- 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
- N80138
- Operator
- Long Beach Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo AJO
- 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
- Main 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
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
- Pilot in command › Gear down and locked, not verified
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Corona, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot noticed that the fuel gauges were indicating that the fuel quantity was low about 20 minutes into the flight. He elected to make a precautionary landing at the nearest airport. The pilot said his approach was high and fast and he landed long on the runway. The airplane was observed crossing the runway threshold with the landing gear in transit. The airplane touched down with the landing gear not fully extended, the main gear collapsed, and the airplane slid off the runway. After the accident, 42 gallons of fuel were drained from the airplane. No evidence was found of a landing gear system malfunction during a postaccident examination. The airplane's normal procedure checklist instructs the pilot to check and observe the main gear is down and the green gear down indicator light is illuminated.
Probable cause
Failure of the pilot in command to follow the airplane's before landing checklist and verify the landing gear was fully extended before landing. Factors in the accident were anxiety and diversion of the pilot's attention due to fuel gauge readings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA095
- Event ID
- 20001208X07320
- Case number
- LAX97LA095
- 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: 74cd12c0fe3b2df551bb6c3dc0f130dcbb08236463e3d9b85527a335262efe5a; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:25:14.409Z.