GAA18CA013 · Cessna 172RG
Crest Airpark Cessna 172RG · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Norman Grier Field (S36) to Auburn Municipal Airport (S50)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA013
- 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 172RG
- 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
- N5159U
- Operator
- Crest Airpark
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norman Grier Field (S36), Kent, WATo Auburn Municipal Airport (S50), Auburn, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1980)
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that the purpose of the flight was to conduct commercial maneuvers in the local area. After completing maneuvers in the practice area, the pilot flew the airplane to the airport to conduct takeoffs and landings.
The student pilot reported that he did his landing checklist about midfield on the downwind. After he put the landing gear handle down, he noted that he heard the landing gear hydraulic motor actuating. He added that he glanced at the gear down indictor light and believed that it was green. During the touchdown, the right main landing gear collapsed, and the airplane came to a stop on the runway.
After exiting the airplane, the flight instructor and student pilot noticed that the landing gear handle was down, the green gear down light was not illuminated, and the circuit breaker for the gear pump was open.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the empennage.
During a postaccident examination, the airplane was lifted by jacks, and the landing gear were swung five times. The malfunction could not be reproduced, and no anomalies were noted.
Probable cause
The failure of the right main landing gear for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA013
- Event ID
- 20171016X12431
- Case number
- GAA18CA013
- 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: 1609144627335b357c7c14a0a8d56a1d0f40d60203e8201907638ba4bd15867b; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:56:19.032Z.