GAA18CA547 · Cessna 172 S
Vermont Flight Academy Cessna 172 S · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV) to Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA547
- 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 S
- 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
- N557SP
- Operator
- Vermont Flight Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV), Burlington, VTTo Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV), Burlington, VT
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot reported that, during approach, he was struggling to keep the airspeed at 60 to 70 knots, so he entered a side slip and reduced the power to idle. Once assured the airplane would reach the runway, he aligned the airplane with the runway. The airplane landed on the left main landing gear, bounced, and the student performed a go-around. He entered the left traffic pattern and landed without further incident.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to the firewall and fuselage.
The student reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The automated weather observation station located on the airport reported that, about 6 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 270° at 6 knots. The airplane landed on runway 33.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s improper landing flare, which resulted in a bounced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA547
- Event ID
- 20180911X95341
- Case number
- GAA18CA547
- 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, coordinates. 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: 597c40ae5d89456b2f9df67c0c5fcdef760994b700acd7c7e6cd8f8d761c0682; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:14:17.197Z.