FTW99LA167 · Cessna 172D
Cessna 172D · Accident: hard landing during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA167
- 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 172D
- 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
- N2460Y
- Operator
- Greg Swink
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, delayed
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Jonesboro, AR, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot landed hard after she delayed aborting the takeoff from a grass airstrip with powerlines at the departure end. The engine was developed full power during the takeoff roll to the south with the flaps extended 10 degrees. About half way down the runway, at approximately 60 knots, she raised the nose of the airplane and became airborne. The airplane climbed to about 25 feet agl and drifted to the left of the runway as she maintained 60 knots in a nose-high attitude. When she applied back pressure, the stall warning horn sounded, so she relaxed the back pressure. The pilot became concerned that the airplane might not be able to clear the power lines at the departure end of the airstrip, and elected to abort the takeoff. The pilot reported a 'very hard landing' in a nose low attitude. The winds at the 2,500 feet long grass airstrip were reported as light. The airstrip was not reported to have any obstacles or powerlines when departing to the north. The grass at the airstrip was reported to be 6-inches tall. The temperature was reported as 'a very humid 85 degrees. ' Density altitude was calculated at 1,996 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight planning and preparation, and her delayed aborted takeoff. Factors were the high density altitude and the tall grass on the airstrip.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA167
- Event ID
- 20001212X19001
- Case number
- FTW99LA167
- 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: 7c5ed30bd3bc12805b14263ebd8ccd78f6d2d49f11e1d998d2f1e0fb07a958fe; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:51:46.015Z.