GAA18LA062 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40 UNDESIGNAT
CAE Oxford Aviation Academy Phoenix Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: wildlife encounter (non-bird) during landing
From Falcon Field (FFZ) to Falcon Field (KFFZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18LA062
- 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
Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA-40
- 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
- N965DS
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZTo Falcon Field (KFFZ), Mesa, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2009)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Wildlife encounter (non-bird)
- 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 structures
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A student pilot was conducting a solo flight when the right main landing gear struck a coyote during the landing flare. The pilot contacted flight school management to inform them of the event. A visual examination that the pilot conducted did not reveal any damage, and she was instructed to fly the airplane back to the home airport. Upon landing, a flight school mechanic examined the airplane and reported seeing hair on the landing gear; the airplane remained in service.
The next morning, the airplane was dispatched for a local employment evaluation flight. The flight instructor and pilot receiving instruction completed a preflight inspection, and no anomalies were observed. The employment evaluation flight departed and consisted of instrument approaches and touch-and-go landings. After the final landing, the pilots heard an abnormal noise coming from the right main landing gear area. Postaccident examination revealed that the internal composite wing structure where the landing gear attaches was fractured.
Based on the available information, the damage to the wing structure was likely a result of the wildlife strike, which damaged the landing gear mount, and the subsequent operation of the airplane, which likely aggravated the damage.
Probable cause
A coyote strike and the subsequent operation of the airplane, which led to internal composite wing structure damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18LA062
- Event ID
- 20171128X34858
- Case number
- GAA18LA062
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 94f83d2fbe3374c6b5c48bf2b5d56015a9362983e4898ee2d6e5c8ba0309f426; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:02:36.568Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. KFFZ is Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona - the same airport shown as the departure ('FFZ · MESA, AZ') - so the destination state code CA is wrong.