ERA20CA304 · Tecnam P92 EA
Heart of Virginia Aviation Tecnam P92 EA · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Hanover County Municipal Airport (OFP) to Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20CA304
- 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
Tecnam P92 EA
- Aircraft type
- Tecnam P92
- 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
- N508TE
- Operator
- Heart of Virginia Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hanover County Municipal Airport (OFP), Richmond/Ashland, VATo Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO), Charlottesville, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2007)
- 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
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot reported that during a cross-country flight, he entered the traffic pattern at his first destination, and while on final approach he needed to add power to correct the airplane’s low approach. During the touchdown he reported that the “nose wheel dropped hard and bounced twice and damaged the front nose wheel and the prop.” Subsequently, the nose landing gear collapsed, and the airplane skidded to a stop on the runway. The airplane’s engine mount sustained substantial damage. Review of airport security video showed that the airplane touched down and bounced three times. On the third touchdown, the airplane did not become airborne again and stopped shortly after. The student pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s improper landing flare, which resulted in a hard, bounced landing and a nose landing gear collapse.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20CA304
- Event ID
- 20200831X81753
- Case number
- ERA20CA304
- 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, cause areas. 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: f2b4010018b9723a2725ae03807918158b6efc30b50991e91b5d4976d182733a; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:58:13.560Z.