MKC86LA065 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP) to East Kansas City Airport (3GV)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC86LA065
- 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 172
- 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
- N3979L
- Operator
- Ronald P. Combest · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP), Topeka, KSTo East Kansas City Airport (3GV), Grain Valley, MO
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PIC WAS MAKING A ROUNDTRIP FLT TO NUMEROUS AIRPORTS ACROSS KANSAS AND MISSOURI. THE OWNER OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS ABOARD FOR THE TRIP WHICH WAS FOR PLEASURE. THE PIC HAD OBTAINED WEATHER INFO AND WAS APPRISED OF THE WIND CONDITIONS FOR HIS ROUTE OF FLT. UPON LANDING AT GRAIN VALLEY AIRPORT, THE PIC LANDED ON ONE GEAR AND THE ACFT BOUNCED INTO THE AIR. THE ACFT FINALLY SETTLED ON BOTH MAIN GEAR, BUT WHEN THE NOSE GEAR SETTLED THE ACFT VEERED OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE EAST WEST RWY. NO LANDING GEAR PBLM WAS NOTED AFTER THE LANDING. THE PIC STATED THAT AFTER THE NOSE GEAR MADE CONTACT WITH THE RWY IT VEERED LEFT AND HE WAS UNABLE TO CORRECT THE PBLM BEFORE DEPARTING THE SIDE OF THE RWY. WIND WAS BLOWING FROM 310 DEGREES MAGNETIC AT 15 KTS WITH RPTS FM THE ACCIDENT AIRPORT OF WIND GUST TO 22 KTS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC86LA065
- Event ID
- 20001213X33141
- Case number
- MKC86LA065
- 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: 8ad609de21e77318b1db11fc3594b84d47978255428bd51eb7f84bb37ced5b04; retrieved 2026-09-23T14:59:13.902Z.