ATL89LA170 · Cessna R172E
Cessna R172E · Accident: hard landing
From 3A1 · Cullman, AL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89LA170
- 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 R172E
- 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
- N48257
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3A1 · Cullman, ALTo 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
- 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 › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT WHEN SHE WAS ESTABLISHED ON FINAL APPROACH TO LAND, THE TOWER TOLD HER TO MAINTAIN HER SPEED BECAUSE OF TWO FIGHTERS BEHIND HER. SHE COMPLIED. SHE PLANNED TO LAND LONG AND TURN ONTO THE NEAREST TAXIWAY TO THE FBO. WHEN SHE WAS OVER THE RUNWAY AND WAS SLOWING TO LAND, THE CONTROLLER INSTRUCTED HER TO EXPEDITE THE LANDING. SUBSEQUENTLY, WHILE SHE WAS ATTEMPTING TO COMPLY, THE AIRCRAFT LANDED HARD, WHICH BUCKLED THE FIRE WALL. THE PILOT (OF N48257) DID NOT INFORM THE TOWER CONTROLLER THAT SHE HAD PLANNED TO LAND LONG.
Probable cause
IMPROPER FLARE BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN A HARD LANDING. THE FACT THAT THE PILOT WAS ASKED TWICE TO EXPEDITE THE LANDING CREATED PRESSURE ON THE PILOT AND WAS CONSIDERED TO BE A FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89LA170
- Event ID
- 20001213X28496
- Case number
- ATL89LA170
- 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: 77505cb31c5760678f58313885812a91754e121c5f9f0f55fbcbfaa6babda4e4; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:30:31.301Z.