CEN17LA047 · Cessna Citation 500
Cessna Citation 500 · Accident: hard landing
From Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) to Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA047
- 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 Citation 500
- Aircraft type
- Cessna CITATION 500
- 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
- N332SE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), San Jose, CATo Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB), Pueblo, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1975)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot of the jet reported that he initially requested that 100 lbs of fuel be added to both fuel tanks. During the subsequent preflight inspection, the pilot decided that more fuel was needed, so he requested that the airplane's fuel tanks be topped off with fuel. However, he did not confirm the fuel levels or check the fuel gauges before takeoff. He departed on the flight and did not check the fuel gauges until about 1 hour after takeoff. He stated that, at that time, the fuel gauges were showing about 900-1,000 lbs of fuel per side, and he realized that the fuel tanks had not been topped off as requested. He reduced engine power to conserve fuel and to increase the airplane's flight endurance while he continued to his destination. When the fuel gauges showed about 400-500 lbs of fuel per side, the low fuel lights for both wing fuel tanks illuminated. The pilot reported to air traffic control that the airplane was low on fuel and diverted the flight to the nearest airport. The pilot reported that the airplane was high and fast on the visual approach for landing. He misjudged the height above the ground and later stated that the airplane "landed very hard." The airplane's left main landing gear and nose gear collapsed and the airplane veered off the runway, resulting in substantial damage to the left wing. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to fly a stabilized approach and his inadequate landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to ensure that the airplane was properly serviced with fuel before departing on the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA047
- Event ID
- 20161205X91704
- Case number
- CEN17LA047
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-12-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bb0f8d4d40a6bc9bf891710c66db2fd7d7347b724bc91d16c4951a1bd94ae783; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:52:48.157Z.