GAA16CA208 · Cessna 172 R
Cessna 172 R · Accident: hard landing
From Durant Regional Airport - Eaker Field (DUA) to Durant Regional Airport - Eaker Field (DUA)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA208
- 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 172 R
- 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
- N35387
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Durant Regional Airport - Eaker Field (DUA), Durant, OKTo Durant Regional Airport - Eaker Field (DUA), Durant, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2002)
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a private pilot practical examination, the private pilot candidate was seated in the left front seat of the airplane at the controls, with the designated pilot examiner candidate seated in the right front seat. The examiner candidate was being evaluated by a designated pilot examiner seated in the left, second row seat behind the pilot candidate. According to the examiner candidate, the flight segments were met satisfactorily and the pilot candidate was asked to complete a crosswind landing. The examiner candidate reported that the pilot candidate struggled during the first approach and initiated a go-around. During the second approach, about 15 feet above the runway, the pilot candidate pulled the throttle off. According to the pilot examiner seated in the back, the examiner candidate reached for the throttle as the airplane landed firm. The examiner candidate completed the landing and informed the pilot candidate that the examination was unsatisfactory and taxied the airplane to the maintenance hangar. An examination of the airplane revealed that the airplane sustained substantial damage to the firewall.
The pilots reported that there were no mechanical failures or anomalies with the airplane prior to or during the flight that would have prevented normal flight operation.
Probable cause
The pilot candidate's incorrect action performance by pulling the throttle off early and the subsequent failure to maintain the descent rate, resulting in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA208
- Event ID
- 20160502X22358
- Case number
- GAA16CA208
- 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: 4797d8487bebc86fd10038be84470a2a4fd63ff1ab00361566c121dbf870a5d5; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:20:25.767Z.