MIA04LA038 · Cessna 172RG
Avion Jet Center Cessna 172RG · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Treasure Coast International Airport (KFPR) to Key West International Airport (KEYW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04LA038
- 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 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
- N4721R
- Operator
- Avion Jet Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Treasure Coast International Airport (KFPR), Fort Pierce, FLTo Key West International Airport (KEYW), Key West, FL
- 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
- Main gear collapsed
- 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 › Emergency procedure, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On approach the pilot selected to extend the landing gear, but he did not get a green light to confirm all three landing gear were down and locked. He checked the electrical fuses and performed several cycles of gear extension with no change to the indication of the landing gear position. He pumped the emergency gear extension hand pump. He advised air traffic control and was instructed to perform several low fly-bys. Tower and fire rescue personnel visually verified that all three landing gear were down. As the airplane's main landing gear touched the runway in a soft field-landing configuration, the right main landing gear collapsed. The pilot stated that he pumped the emergency gear extension pump handle until he felt resistances. He could not remember how many strokes exactly he performed, somewhere from 2 to 3 strokes. The main landing gears were operationally checked once with the airplane's own battery power and twice with the emergency landing gear extension hydraulic hand pump for manual extension of landing gears. The main landing gears extended and locked into position within 12 to 15 pumps of the emergency landing gear extension hydraulic hand pump. No defects were observed in the operation of the extension and locking of the main landing gears by hand pump. An examination of the main landing left and right gear actuators and locking systems revealed no anomalies. Avion's chief flight instructor stated close to a month before the accident, on the accident airplane, he had to perform an emergency extension of the landing gear by the hand pump; more so, it took anywhere from 10 to 20 pumps to lower the gear and into the lock position. According to the chief pilot who checked out the pilot only verbal instructions on how to extend the landing gear by hand pump was given during the check ride in the airplane.
Probable cause
Pilot's improper emergency landing gear extension procedure which resulted in the right main landing gear not locking in the down position subsequent right main landing gear collapsing on landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04LA038
- Event ID
- 20040121X00079
- Case number
- MIA04LA038
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-12-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a2a9c2053053dfd13fe13c152e13a06ddb3c95a0f4a4849736a31e061707c45c; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:03:28.383Z.