MIA05CA067 · Cessna 172
Jacksonville Navy Flying Club Cessna 172 · Accident: hard landing
From Herlong Airport (HEG) to Herlong Airport (HEG)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05CA067
- 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 172
- 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
- N4980R
- Operator
- Jacksonville Navy Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Herlong Airport (HEG), Jacksonville, FLTo Herlong Airport (HEG), Jacksonville, 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 · 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
- Pilot in command › Flare, 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 student pilot stated her second landing approach was a "little fast" and right at the point she flared the nosewheel hit the runway hard. She attempted to maintain control of the airplane, but the nosewheel hit hard again. She then applied full throttle deciding to make a go-around. The third landing was without incident and she taxied back to the ramp. After the airplane was secure she observed the airplane, and found damage to the propeller and nose. The student pilot stated there were no mechanical failures or malfunction to the airplane or any of its systems prior to the accident. The chief pilot for the Navy flying club stated he observed the student pilot takeoff and fly the traffic pattern. The second approach seemed slightly fast, but well controlled. The round out and flare appeared to be normal but the airplane seemed to touch down early, landing flat on all three wheels. Then the nose came up abruptly and the airplane climbed about 3-4 feet into the air followed by the nose coming down abruptly and appeared to contact the runway. Again, the airplane rose about 3-4 feet followed by an abrupt change in pitch nose down, and the nosewheel may have contacted the runway a second time. The student then added power and entered a shallow climb. After flying the traffic pattern the student landed normally and taxied back to the ramp. After the engine was secured he observed damage to the propeller tips, buckling of the fire wall and floor board panels.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper landing flare which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05CA067
- Event ID
- 20050323X00348
- Case number
- MIA05CA067
- 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: 82e11604d3380e6ef97cbdf1149f7353420369dc3f4eaf00cdbf3efa9cd053e0; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:14:52.963Z.