ATL07CA093 · Cessna 172S
Executive Aviation Cessna 172S · Accident: hard landing
From Genesee County Airport (KGVQ) to Genesee County Airport (KGVQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07CA093
- 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
- N2228L
- Operator
- Executive Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Genesee County Airport (KGVQ), Batavia, NYTo Genesee County Airport (KGVQ)
- 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, not performed
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 he lowered the flaps to 20 degrees and was high on final approach for landing. He pulled the power off, lowered the nose of the airplane to maintain airspeed, and descended down to about 3 to 4 feet above the runway. He stated he failed to flare the airplane, the airplane landed hard, and bounced. He applied power, and the airplane settled down onto the runway, and bounced again. He pulled the power off, the airplane bounced again before touching down firmly on the runway. He taxied to the ramp and shut the airplane down. Upon exiting the airplane he noticed the propeller had collided with the runway. Further examination of the airplane on the following day revealed the cabin floor was buckled. The student pilot stated he did not have any mechanical problems with the airplane before the accident. When asked what caused the accident the student pilot stated, "An improper flare resulting in the nose wheel colliding with the runway."
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to flare the airplane during landing resulting in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07CA093
- Event ID
- 20070717X00947
- Case number
- ATL07CA093
- 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: 99867c232b2fdaada73bbf9e10fa4043b3e7f8590b2227b33630cf8cef43bf03; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:45:17.336Z.