CHI04LA081 · Aero Commander 112
Aero Commander 112 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Mount Pleasant Municipal Airport (MOP) to Jackson County Airport/Reynolds Field (JXN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA081
- 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
Aero Commander 112
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 112
- 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
- N1203J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Pleasant Municipal Airport (MOP), Mount Pleasant, MITo Jackson County Airport/Reynolds Field (JXN), Jackson, MI
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Landing gear, tire › Failure, total
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Directional control, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with a snow bank following a loss of directional control while landing. The certified flight instructor (CFI) reported that upon landing the left main landing gear tire blew out and the airplane veered to the left. He reported the landing was not hard and it did not feel as if the student had the brakes locked on touchdown. He stated he and the student pilot used right rudder in an attempt to keep the airplane on the runway, but it continued off the left side of the runway. The nose gear contacted a snow bank that was approximately 10 feet off the side of the runway, collapsing the nose gear. During a telephone interview the CFI stated the airplane did not veer sharply, but rather it was gradual in an approximate 30 degree angle from the runway heading. Post accident inspection of the airplane revealed the left tire was blown and there was a flat spot on the tire.
Probable cause
The left main tire failed which resulted in the CFI's inability to maintain directional control of the airplane during the landing. A factor associated with the accident was the snow bank which the airplane contacted.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA081
- Event ID
- 20040303X00256
- Case number
- CHI04LA081
- 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, coordinates. 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: 45dacfbb8df7a92df80d22881bc19b663f06ff60f88132c63b3f4e5ac10bda27; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:55:04.165Z.