ERA09CA234 · Cessna 172RG
Cessna 172RG · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Charleston International Airport (CHS) to Charleston Executive Airport (JZI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA234
- 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
- N6208V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charleston International Airport (CHS), Charleston, SCTo Charleston Executive Airport (JZI), Charleston, SC
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Landing gear not configured
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While practicing a "power off 180 degree accuracy landing," the certificated private pilot became distracted in the traffic pattern by a converging airplane on approach to a different runway at the same airport. The accident airplane touched down with the landing gear retracted and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The accident pilot had not lowered the gear on the downwind leg; instead, he intended to lower the gear on final, when "he was sure [he] had the runway made." According to the airplane's information manual, the accident airplane was equipped with an audio warning system which was designed to sound whenever the throttle was retarded below 12 inches of manifold pressure. The accident pilot stated that he did not notice the landing gear warning tone until after the airplane stopped on the ground. Most of the accident pilot's instruction in complex airplanes was not conducted in the accident airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to extend the landing gear before landing. Contributing to the accident was the diversion of the pilot's attention to an airplane on a converging final approach course.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA234
- Event ID
- 20090407X73042
- Case number
- ERA09CA234
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 79c708b5548ff1508f35a6da9e2466829414327d0f6346c15f328433484299ef; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:54:56.218Z.