ANC18LA009 · Cessna 172RG
Cessna 172RG · Accident: electrical system malfunction/failure on approach
From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF) to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC18LA009
- 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
- N6102R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), Opa Locka, FLTo Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), Opa Locka, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 38 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Electrical system malfunction/failure
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while practicing instrument approaches for an upcoming checkride, she moved the landing gear selector to the down position, verified that the landing gear position light was illuminated green, set the flaps to 20°, and completed the before landing checklist. Shortly thereafter, when the airplane was about 500 ft above ground level (agl), the GPS blinked, and electrical power and radio communications were lost. When the airplane was about 150 ft agl, the lights on the airplane's instrument panel blinked and remained illuminated. The pilot selected flaps to 30° and configured the airplane for landing. The pilot then moved the landing light switch to the on position and again lost all electrical power. Upon touchdown, the right main landing gear collapsed, and the airplane departed the runway, which resulted in substantial damage to the right horizontal stabilizer. The pilot stated that no electrical or landing gear warning lights were illuminated for the duration of the flight.
A postaccident examination revealed that the airplane's battery had been depleted. Further examination revealed no anomalies with the airplane's electrical charging system, landing gear system, or its actuators. However, both the landing gear unsafe horn and low voltage warning light were inoperable.
Given that the landing gear unsafe horn and low voltage warning light were inoperable, it is unlikely that the pilot would have been alerted to an electrical system failure, which ultimately would have depleted the battery and affected the operation of the landing gear system.
Probable cause
A failure of the airplane 's electrical system, which led to the failure of the landing gear system, for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination and testing revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Contributing to the accident were the inoperative landing gear unsafe warning horn and the low voltage warning light.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC18LA009
- Event ID
- 20171116X91006
- Case number
- ANC18LA009
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2017-11-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c8c2418e58ab5badd8918237dfd1abb9bdc65a9d393f59d2bf4ba2055f706980; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:00:31.538Z.