CHI07CA025 · Cessna 172G
Cessna 172G · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during landing
From Rush City Regional Airport (ROS) to Ankeny Regional Airport (IKV)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07CA025
- 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 172G
- 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
- N1374F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rush City Regional Airport (ROS), Rush City, MNTo Ankeny Regional Airport (IKV), Ankeny, IA
- 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
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 was substantially damaged when it encountered a ditch after over running the runway pavement during a night landing. The pilot reported that the runway lights did not come on when she attempted to activate them via the airplane radio prior to landing. She attempted to activate them a total of 3 times. She subsequently overflew the airport in order to identify the runway. She stated that she "flew downwind to where [she] estimated the end of the runway would be [and] turned to final." She noted that she flew over the runway "low" to see the centerline and decided to land. She then realized that the airplane had touched down "well down [the] runway." She was unable to stop before the end of the pavement and the airplane rolled into the grass. She stated that as the airplane slowed she attempted to turn back; however, she encountered a drainage ditch causing the nose landing gear to collapse and damaging the firewall. The pilot reported that after the accident she realized that the radio was set to the incorrect frequency. The radio was set to 120.9 instead of the correct Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) for the destination airport of 122.9. The airport manager reported that the runway lights functioned properly when activated after the accident. He also noted that the lights are normally off until activated by a pilot via the CTAF.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to land on an unlighted runway at night, and her resulting failure to attain a proper touchdown point leading to the landing over run. Contributing factors were the night (low light) condition and the ditch encountered during the overrun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07CA025
- Event ID
- 20061214X01791
- Case number
- CHI07CA025
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-11-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b939907f545ec4dfdab9fe8a0554ff33a9eddefe4d8085712218a9bc92d80ffa; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:13:57.229Z.