ATL04LA143 · Cessna 172S
WK Dickson & Cessna 172S · Accident: airframe, component or system failure
From Cherokee County Regional Airport (K47A) to Barrow County Airport (KWDR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA143
- 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
- N2069S
- Operator
- WK Dickson &
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cherokee County Regional Airport (K47A), Cherokee County, GATo Barrow County Airport (KWDR), Winder, GA
- 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
- Unknown
- 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, nose gear assembly › Overload
- Landing gear, nose gear strut › Pressure excessive
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that, while in cruise flight, he noticed the airplane required a greater than normal amount of right rudder input to maintain coordinated flight. During landing, when the nosewheel touched down, the airplane decelerated rapidly, veered uncontrollably to the right, and nosed over. Examination of the runway revealed a single, wide black skid mark was extended from near the runway centerline to where the airplane came to rest inverted. Examination of the airplane revealed the upper torque link bolt was fractured with a separated portion of the bolt lodged in the torque link assembly. The bolt showed shear deformation adjacent to the fractures consistent with shear overstress. The lower torque link bolt and the connecting bolt also showed shear deformation. Microhardness testing of samples taken from the bolts revealed the material complied with the manufacturer's specifications. Examination of the forward face of the stop lug on the upper torque link revealed deformation from multiple impacts on the forward face. The airplane had accumulated 81.4 hours since new. The pilot stated the airplane's nose strut had been serviced twice since April 2004, because the nose strut visually appeared low. The mechanic who serviced the strut the day before the accident stated he added nitrogen to the strut to effect a strut extension of approximately two and a half inches, and he moved the strut up and down to check for bottoming out, over service, and a return to static extension of approximately two and a half inches. The airplane was flown for two approximate one-hour flights since the strut service. A review of the Cessna Aircraft Company Model 172 Maintenance Manual, Page 301, "Nose Landing Gear Shock Strut - Servicing," revealed Section 2. B. (8) states: "With strut fully extended and nose wheel clear of ground, inflate strut to 45 psi."
Probable cause
The improper maintenance (over-pressurization) of the nose gear strut, which resulted in an overload failure of the nose gear upper torque link bolt. The airplane subsequently nosed over during an uncontrollable landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA143
- Event ID
- 20040723X01042
- Case number
- ATL04LA143
- 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: cd464890f0ec90a7a064561e6fe2bbe2213a947ccfa96dda39ce0057629ad919; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:01:41.340Z.