ERA14CA121 · Cessna 172R
Christiansen Aviation Cessna 172R · Accident: hard landing
From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR) to Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA121
- 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 172R
- 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
- N828BM
- Operator
- Christiansen Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, FLTo Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 1997)
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the student pilot, this was his first solo flight and he was conducting touch-and-go landings and takeoffs. On the third landing, he flared the airplane high; it landed hard and bounced back into the air. He then pitched the nose of the airplane up and the tail section struck the runway prior to landing. The student pilot taxied the airplane off of the active runway and brought it to a full stop. A visual examination revealed minor damage to the exterior of the airplane. The student pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane was examined by maintenance personnel for further damage and released back into service. The airplane was used during another flight, and flight controls were noted as difficult to manipulate. The airplane was returned for further examination and during the second examination, substantial damage was noted to the firewall from the first event.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA121
- Event ID
- 20140216X11320
- Case number
- ERA14CA121
- 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. 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: da314e32bd0e2dceef0908fc276eb96b4f3d9ac0cb65f80fe7fc2224a4c4ce61; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:19:26.519Z.