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GAA15CA214 · Cessna 172N N

3 Aug 2015 · Miami, FL, United States

ADF Airways Cessna 172N N · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing

From Miami Executive Airport (TMB) to Miami Executive Airport (TMB)

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Event

NTSB case
GAA15CA214
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 172N N

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
N6223D
Operator
ADF Airways
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Miami Executive Airport (TMB), Miami, FLTo Miami Executive Airport (TMB), Miami, FL
Aircraft age
About 36 years (built 1979)
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
Abnormal runway contact
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, while performing touch and go landings at his host airport, the airplane sustained a hard landing. He stated that the first of two landings was flat and the airplane bounced, but the subsequent takeoff was normal. He reported that during the second landing, "I felt that there was something wrong with the tire, so I stopped, followed the checklist to shut down the engine and proceeded to contact tower and request assistance." A post flight inspection revealed that the airplane sustained substantial damage to the fire wall.

The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or anomalies prior to flight that would have prevented normal operation.

Probable cause

The student pilot's failure to maintain pitch control resulting in a hard landing and damage to the airplane firewall.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record GAA15CA214
Event ID
20150806X02755
Case number
GAA15CA214
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: 9391725c93b8da4771e3cd794dbcf6ae5ef103841b81a28c4f7696c3e2913517; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:37:52.679Z.