ATL83FIA04 · Cessna 152
Eagle Air Cessna 152 · Accident: hard landing
From Hagerstown Regional Richard A Henson Field (HGR) to Front Royal Warren County Airport (FRR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83FIA04
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N6171Q
- Operator
- Eagle Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hagerstown Regional Richard A Henson Field (HGR), Hagerstown, MDTo Front Royal Warren County Airport (FRR), Front Royal, VA
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Diverted attention
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT WAS ON HIS FIRST SOLO CROSS COUNTRY FLT. DURING THE APPROACH TO FRONT ROYAL THE STUDENT WAS ADVISED BY UNICOM THAT A DEER WAS ON THE RWY. THE UNICOM OPERATOR SUGGESTED THAT HE BUZZ THE ARPT TO CHASE THE DEER AWAY. THE STUDENT HEARD ONLY THAT THAT A DEER WAS ON THE RWY. AS HE CONTINUED HIS APPROACH HE WAS ADVISED THAT THE DEER WAS OFF TO THE LEFT OF THE RWY. THE STUDENT SPOTTED THE DEER JUST BEFORE TOUCHDOWN. WHEN THE ACFT LANDED IT BOUNCED AND CAME DOWN HARD ON THE NOSE GEAR. THE NOSE GEAR FOLDED BACK AND SEVERED A FUEL LINE. SPARKS FROM THE PROPELLER HITTING THE RWY, IGNITED THE FUEL. THE PILOT EXITED THE ACFT AND DID NOT TURN OFF THE FUEL. THE ACFT WAS DESTROYED IN THE FIRE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83FIA04
- Event ID
- 20001214X43986
- Case number
- ATL83FIA04
- 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: 172767a131dc0047981de945db7e19ecdfe85da1fc35be4c6829a6b65806ce54; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:32:34.402Z.