ATL04CA145 · Cessna 172 RG
Cessna 172 RG · Accident: wheels up landing
From 55J · Fernandina Beach, FL to Fernandina, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04CA145
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N6321R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 55J · Fernandina Beach, FLTo Fernandina, 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
- 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 › Checklist, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, "while I was plotting my course to make sure that [I] was going to make the runway I was calling out the items on the checklist. I was trying to take the first half of the runway and I was high on the approach. I was trying to concentrate on getting down before the point that he (check airman) pointed out. I finally was getting [down] and I had my point made until we heard a horrendous noise which was the prop hitting the pavement." Examination of the airplane revealed engine and propeller damage, firewall damage, underbelly fuselage damage as well as front doors and skin being cracked and buckled. The landing gear system, all three wheels, were still in the wheel wells. The subsequent functional test of the landing gear system failed to disclose a mechanical problem. The functional test also determined that the landing gear warning horn was operational.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the checklist and lower the landing gear prior to landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04CA145
- Event ID
- 20040729X01104
- Case number
- ATL04CA145
- 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: f95b03b9e37963f13613402780f4e66eb894d0d76067fa095661bbf790fadc50; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:08:49.753Z.