CHI87LA220 · Cessna 172RG
Cessna 172RG · Accident: gear not extended during landing
From Southern Illinois Airport (MDH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI87LA220
- 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
- N9543B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southern Illinois Airport (MDH), Carbondale, ILTo 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
- Gear not extended
- 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
- Gear down and locked › Not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
- Wheels up landing › Inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE INSTRUCTOR (CFI), HE & THE STUDENT CONFIRMED THE GEAR WAS EXTENDED & LOCKED AS THEY ENTERED THE TRAFFIC PATTERN. FLAPS WERE EXTENDED & THEY CONTD IN THE PATTERN TO PRACTICE A SHORT FIELD LANDING TECHNIQUE. POWER WAS REDUCED AFTER CROSSING 100' OVER AN IMAGINARY 50' OBSTACLE. THE CFI STATED THAT ON THE INITIAL LNDG, THE ACFT CAME BACK OFF THE GND SVRL FT, & ON THE 2ND TOUCHDOWN, IT SETTLED ON ITS BELLY & SLID DOWN THE RWY WITH THE GEAR HANDLE IN THE UP PSN & THE GEAR RETRACTED. HE BELIEVED THE GEAR HANDLE 'ADVANCED FROM THE DOWN AND LOCKED POSITION TO THE UP POSITION.' HOWEVER, WHEN THE NORMAL & EMERGENCY GEAR SYSTEMS WERE CHECKED, THEY OPERATED NORMALLY & NO MALFUNCTION WAS FND. THE GEAR RETRACTION CYCLE TOOK 6 SECONDS TO GO FROM FULL DOWN TO FULL UP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI87LA220
- Event ID
- 20001213X32044
- Case number
- CHI87LA220
- 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: f953d616f2f79c15ee3d71310b1a80c3e23b802c152e3531ecf0de2f024a5825; retrieved 2026-09-23T12:01:59.937Z.