CHI04CA165 · Cessna 172S
Indianapolis Aviation Cessna 172S · Accident: hard landing
From Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP) to Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04CA165
- 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 172S
- 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
- N229ME
- Operator
- Indianapolis Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP), Fishers, INTo Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP), Fishers, IN
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, nose gear assembly › Collapsed
- Pilot in command › Flare, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Porpoise/pilot-induced oscillation, encountered
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
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 experienced a hard landing, which was followed by a pilot-induced porpoise and the collapse of the nose landing gear. The student pilot was flying solo at the time of the accident. The pilot reported he crossed the runway threshold approximately 100 feet above ground level, and then reduced engine power to idle to initiate the descent to the runway. The pilot stated that during the landing flare the airplane touched down with a "mild impact," which was followed by the airplane bouncing back into the air. The pilot reported he continued to flare, with no addition of engine power, and the second touchdown was "harder than the first." The pilot stated, "No correction action attempted and third touchdown broke nose wheel, prop hit pavement and plane came to stop." He reported the accident could have been prevented if he had performed a go-around after experiencing the initial hard touchdown and subsequent bounce.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate remedial actions after an inadequate landing flare and subsequent hard landing. Additional causes were the pilot-induced porpoise and the collapse of the nose landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04CA165
- Event ID
- 20040712X00955
- Case number
- CHI04CA165
- 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: ebc57ca64f4c25ef5dfa6f1b6fedec0821a0a93d386c4449f11bfa4e15f37176; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:14:03.523Z.