MIA05LA043 · Cessna 172S
Sterling Flight Training by Malone Air Cessna 172S · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (KCRG) to Southwest Florida International Airport (KRSW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05LA043
- 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
- N375LP
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (KCRG), Jacksonville, FLTo Southwest Florida International Airport (KRSW), Fort Myers, 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 · 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
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 after takeoff the flight proceeded towards the destination airport, but he elected to perform a touch-and-go landing at the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. The flight was cleared for the touch-and-go landing on runway 09, and after touchdown on the centerline of the runway, the airplane bounced 1-2 feet, then touched down again. The airplane began slowly drifting to the left which he was unable to correct with right rudder input. He applied power to go around, then elected to stay on the ground, and with right rudder applied, the airplane departed the left side of the runway. The airplane collided with a taxiway sign causing separation of the nose landing gear. The airplane then came to rest and the occupants exited the airplane. A surface weather observation (METAR) report taken on the airport approximately 4 minutes after the accident indicates the wind was from 030 degrees at 4 knots. Examination of the left and right steering tube assemblies was performed by personnel from Cessna Aircraft Company, with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) oversight. The examination revealed the tube (P/N 0543021-1) of both steering tube assemblies were fractured due to overstress at the formed bead; deformation of the tubes was noted at the fracture location. Additionally, the left "Bearing-rod end" P/N S1823-3 had fractured at the location of the first thread. The fracture surface was examined by the NTSB Materials Laboratory which revealed it fractured due to "bending overstress." According to the Director of Maintenance of the operator, there was no record that either steering tube assemblies being replaced since airplane was manufactured on April 30, 2003. At the time of the accident, the airplane had accumulated approximately 884 hours since overhaul.
Probable cause
The faulure of the pilot to maintain directional control of the aircraft during the landing roll resulting in the on-ground collision with a taxiway sign and subsequent collapse of the nose landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05LA043
- Event ID
- 20041222X02025
- Case number
- MIA05LA043
- 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: de9f287aa33a03a240511c7b1d35185863f7fe89c793ce54ec483a04703ab558; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:25:45.974Z.