LAX07LA215 · Cessna 172RG
Avian Flight Center Cessna 172RG · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Bremerton National Airport (KPWT) to Roche Harbor Airport (WA09)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA215
- 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 172RG
- 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
- N9551B
- Operator
- Avian Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bremerton National Airport (KPWT), Bremerton, WATo Roche Harbor Airport (WA09), Roche Harbor, WA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Emergency procedure, 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
As the airplane approached the destination airport, it had an electrical failure. The pilot stated he was concerned about the potential for an electrical fire, and elected not to attempt to troubleshoot the malfunction. He extended the landing gear by placing the gear lever in the "DOWN" position, and said he visually confirmed that they were down by the mirrors affixed to the wings, as the landing gear indicator lights in the cockpit were not illuminated due to the loss of electrical power. The pilot did not use the emergency gear extension system. With the landing gear appearing to be extended, the airplane touched down on the runway and the main landing gear collapsed. The airplane's loss of electrical power rendered the landing gear warning system inoperative; the warning system is designed to help prevent the pilot from inadvertently making a landing with the landing gear retracted. No evidence of any mechanical malfunction was found during the postimpact examination of the landing gear and alternator/battery electrical system. If the pilot had used the emergency gear extension system per the procedures prescribed in the pilot's operating handbook, it is probable that the landing gear would have extended and locked. The underlying cause of the electrical system failure could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to perform the emergency landing gear extension procedure prior to landing. A contributing factor in the accident was the failure of the electrical system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA215
- Event ID
- 20070730X01044
- Case number
- LAX07LA215
- 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 2007-07-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 36ef645a0ca188e36c96815cb8f6787eb85f8317201632cbc67f4ba3762a24fb; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:40:06.965Z.