GAA16CA305 · Cessna 172 N
Bergstrom Aircraft Cessna 172 N · Accident: hard landing
From Tri Cities Airport (PSC) to Tri Cities Airport (PSC)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA305
- 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 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
- N733EC
- Operator
- Bergstrom Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri Cities Airport (PSC), Pasco, WATo Tri Cities Airport (PSC), Pasco, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1976)
- 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
- 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
The flight instructor reported that about 150 feet above the ground during the initial climb, he reduced the power to idle to demonstrate loss of engine power during takeoff. He further reported that he lowered the nose of the airplane to gain airspeed, but after about 2 seconds the airplane settled rapidly. The flight instructor advanced the throttle to full forward, and flared about 20 feet above the ground to arrest the sink rate. He reported that the airplane landed flat, all three landing gear collapsed, and the airplane skidded about 150 feet down the runway, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing.
According to the flight instructor there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
A review of recorded data from the automated weather observation station located on the airport, revealed that, about 37 minutes before the accident the wind was 200 degrees true at 16 knots, wind gusts 23 knots. A further review revealed that, about 27 minutes after the accident the wind was 190 degrees true at 17 knots, wind gusts 27 knots. The airplane landed on runway 21R.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain pitch control during the simulated engine failure after takeoff, which resulted in a hard landing, landing gear(s) collapse, and wing damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA305
- Event ID
- 20160613X32323
- Case number
- GAA16CA305
- 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: 292fed31b87ef8cfb68ca919a95a30df45b8db5a0a1c051ff32201fe2247f0e0; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:30:06.397Z.