SEA01LA071 · Cessna 172 RG
Cessna 172 RG · Accident: wheels up landing
From Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW) to Tacoma Narrows, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA071
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 RG
- 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
- N9551B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW), Tacoma Narrows, WATo Tacoma Narrows, WA
- 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
- 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
- Wheels up 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 › Gear extension, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that shortly after takeoff he noted a "high pitched hissing tone" in conjunction with the illumination of the airplane's low-voltage light. He reported that the situation lasted for a few seconds before the hissing tone subsided and the low voltage light returned to normal. The pilot stated that he thought there "might" be a problem with the aircraft's engine and elected to return to the airport and land. The pilot turned the airplane 180 degrees and attempted to land on the opposing runway. After completing the turn, the pilot realigned the airplane on the runway centerline. He stated " I thought I did reach over and put the landing gear lever in the down position, but I don't remember for sure." The pilot stated that just before touchdown, he heard what he thought was the sound of the propeller striking the runway. He applied power and initiated a go-around. The pilot stated that he then aborted the go-around and "put the gear down" in an attempt to land the airplane on the remaining runway. The airplane touched down on the runway and the right main landing gear leg collapsed. The airplane made several heading changes before coming to rest in a grassy area northeast of runway. A FAA Inspector from the Flight Standards District Office inspected the airplane after the accident and reported that there was no evidence found to indicate a mechanical failure or malfunction with the airplane prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to extend the airplane's landing gear while landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA071
- Event ID
- 20010417X00769
- Case number
- SEA01LA071
- 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 2001-04-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fffab9bc46cb3532fb3b64678a0f32588cc591c04a9becc11c3e0a73ff8802f2; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:02:15.183Z.