LAX93LA127 · Piper PA-28-161
S & S Flight Center Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: hard landing
From L45 to L45
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA127
- 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
Piper PA-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N9750K
- Operator
- S & S Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L45To L45
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Dual student › Flare, misjudged
- Landing gear, main gear attachment › Failure, total
- Landing gear, main gear attachment › Overload
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR, THE DUAL PRIMARY INSTRUCTIONAL FLIGHT DEPARTED THE AIRPORT AND PERFORMED SOME AIRWORK IN A NEARBY PRACTICE AREA THEN RETURNED TO DO SOME TOUCH AND GO TRAFFIC PATTERN OPERATIONS. ON THE THIRD TOUCH AND GO LANDING ROLL, HE SAID 'I DEPRESSED THE BRAKES AND FELT AND HEARD THE RIGHT LANDING GEAR 'GIVE.'' THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED, PUNCTURING THE WING WITH THE STRUT. GROUND BASED WITNESSES AT THE AIRPORT REPORTED THAT ON THE SECOND TOUCH AND GO PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT LANDING, THE AIRCRAFT MADE A 'VERY NOTICEABLE HARD LANDING.' THE AIRCRAFT WAS EXAMINED BY AN FAA AIRWORTHINESS INSPECTOR WHO REPORTED THAT THE BOLTS WHICH SECURE THE LANDING GEAR STRUT TO THE WING SPAR APPEARED TO HAVE FAILED IN SHEAR.
Probable cause
THE OVERLOAD FAILURE OF THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR STRUT ATTACH BOLTS DUE TO A HARD LANDING. THE HARD LANDING WAS THE RESULT OF THE STUDENT MISJUDGING THE LANDING FLARE, AND, THE INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF THE FLIGHT BY THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA127
- Event ID
- 20001211X11849
- Case number
- LAX93LA127
- 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: 08535e172866ba8fa6a155582189d0e93c56e8fabe0346bc21e8eb982d4b15a2; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:18:43.488Z.