LAX83LA264 · Cessna 172N
Skyway Aviation Cessna 172N · Accident: hard landing
From San Carlos Airport (SQL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83LA264
- 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 172N
- 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
- N6669E
- Operator
- Skyway Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Carlos Airport (SQL), San Carlos, CATo 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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 › Proper descent rate, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT DURING THE APPROACH TO RWY 17 HE USED 30 DEG OF FLAPS AND MAINTAINED AN AIRSPEED OF 55 KTS. WHEN HE WAS ABOUT TEN FEET AGL OVER THE RWY THRESHOLD A STRONG GUST OF WIND UPSET THE AIRCRAFT. HE LOST CONTROL AND TRIED TO GO AROUND. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE RUNWAY AND BOUNCED UP. WHEN IT IMPACTED THE RUNWAY THE SECOND TIME, THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED. THE AIRCRAFT NOSED OVER AND CAME TO REST ABOUT 3000 FEET FROM THE THRESHOLD. A WITNESS TO THE ACCIDENT STATED THAT THE AIRCRAFT APPEARED TO APPROACH THE RUNWAY A LITTLE TOO HIGH AND A BIT TOO FAST AND THE WIND WAS FROM THE NORTH TO WEST. THE WITNESS REPORTED THAT THE INITIAL TOUCHDOWN WAS HARD. THE AIRCRAFT BOUNCED 6 FEET INTO THE AIR, TOUCHED DOWN AGAIN AND BOUNCED 20 FEET IN THE AIR. THE AIRCRAFT THEN APPEARED TO STALL AND IT FINALLY CAME DOWN IN A NOSE LOW ATTITUDE AND FLIPPED OVER. THE WINDS WERE ESTIMATED TO BE 10 TO 12 KTS WITH AN OCCASIONAL GUST TO 15 KTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83LA264
- Event ID
- 20001214X43393
- Case number
- LAX83LA264
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-06-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6220c1a19b5951260b5c4c03156074d690d77302eaa175a48e9f54afc87dc951; retrieved 2026-09-22T02:40:05.224Z.