LAX89LA272 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: hard landing
From L12 to L12
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89LA272
- 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 172P
- 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
- N51920
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L12To L12
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Level off, improper
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
IN HIS ORAL AND WRITTEN STATEMENTS, THE PILOT SAID THAT THE APPROACH WAS COMPLETELY NORMAL. JUST AS THE AIRCRAFT WAS IN THE FLARE, THE PILOT SAID THE AIRCRAFT NOSE WENT TO THE LEFT AND HE APPLIED RIGHT RUDDER, WHICH SUDDENLY MADE THE NOSE OF THE AIRCRAFT GO TOO FAR TO THE RIGHT. THE PILOT NOTED THAT HE COULDN'T GET THE AIRCRAFT STRAIGHTENED OUT BEFORE THE MAIN WHEELS CONTACTED THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT SAID THAT THE AIRCRAFT 'HIT AND BOUNCED, AND WHEN IT CAME BACK DOWN, IT VEERED OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY.' WITNESSES ON THE AIRPORT REPORTED THAT THE AIRCRAFT HIT THE RUNWAY VERY HARD WHILE IN A CRAB. EXAMINATION OF THE PILOT'S LOGBOOK REVEALED THAT HE HAD LIMITED RECENT EXPERIENCE, LOGGING ONLY TWO HOURS WITHIN THE LAST 90 DAYS. EXAMINATION OF THE LANDING GEAR REVEALED THAT THE SEVERITY OF THE HARD LANDING SHEARED THE MAIN GEAR STRUT ATTACH BOLTS, WHICH ALLOWED THE RIGHT GEAR TO ROTATE FREELY.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER LEVEL-OFF, RECOVERY FROM BOUNCED LANDING, AND FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL DURING THE LANDING. THE PILOT'S LIMITED RECENT EXPERIENCE WAS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89LA272
- Event ID
- 20001213X29157
- Case number
- LAX89LA272
- 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: 43b0ac0353c4b13662b0a8fe51d20c3e0fb488fb0cb3c155175345db13471956; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:16:12.160Z.