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MIA98LA165 · Cessna 172RG

17 May 1998 · Roberta, GA, United States

Cessna 172RG · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route

From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK) to Jimmy Carter Regional Airport (ACJ)

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Event

NTSB case
MIA98LA165
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
N6562V
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Chamblee, GATo Jimmy Carter Regional Airport (ACJ), Americus, GA
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
En route · cruise
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
Airframe, component or system failure
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 › Emergency procedure, inadequate

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Roberta, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

The pilot stated that during the flight, the electrical system failed. He attempted to restore electrical power using the emergency procedures but was unable. He pumped the landing gear down using 30 pumps of the handle to the point where he heard and it felt like the landing gear was extended. He elected to land at a nearby grass runway and the airplane touched down about 1,800 feet down the 3,700 foot runway. During the landing roll the right main landing gear collapsed and the airplane veered off the right side of the runway. Shortly after the accident the master switch was turned on and power was available to raise and lower the flaps. Additionally, during repair of the airplane following the accident no maintenance was performed or required to the electrical system or to the right main landing gear assembly. According to the emergency procedures section of the airplane information manual, the emergency hand pump is to be pumped until resistance is heavy-about 35 cycles.

Probable cause

The pilot's inadequate compliance with the emergency procedures for his failure to completely pump the main landing gear into the down and locked position. Contributing to the accident was the reported loss of electrical power for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA98LA165
Event ID
20001211X10159
Case number
MIA98LA165
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: 10247efaf1ef0b2e67d82f1bc99cabba4f59865b7f908ce1a7d232a7dbff4faf; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:46:39.469Z.