Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / CHI05LA137

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CHI05LA137

2005-06-11 Garden City, Kansas, United States Airport · GCK Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The student pilot's failure to maintain a proper glidepath during landing and his misjudged flare which resulted in the hard landing and subsequent failure of the nose landing gear. Factors were the aborted landing performed by the pilot and the degradation in climb performance due to the propeller strike.

Factual narrative

On June 11, 2005, at 1738 central daylight time, an amateur-built Mazzon Dragonfly, N821KM, piloted by a student pilot, sustained substantial damage during a forced landing near Garden City, Kansas. The pilot had previously executed an aborted landing due to a bounced landing. The 14 CFR Part 91 personal flight was operating in visual meteorological conditions without a flight plan. The pilot received minor injuries. The local flight originated at 1733. In a written report, the pilot stated that he had been performing touch and go landings. He reported that he landed the airplane at too steep an angle and the propeller struck the ground. He said that he was able to gain about 500 feet of altitude, but "lost thrust" and executed an emergency landing into a bean field approximately 1/2 mile from the end of the runway. He reported no pre-impact mechanical failures of the airplane. The report stated that he had been performing landings to runway 17 ( 7,300 feet by 100 feet), at the Garden City Regional Airport, Garden City, Kansas. The pilot possessed a student pilot certificate. He did not have an endorsement in his logbook authorizing solo flight in the accident make and model airplane. On-scene examination revealed that the nose landing gear had broken off during the landing attempt at the airport. The airplane was damaged during a forced landing to a field. The pilot reported that while executing a landing at an airport, he landed at too steep of an angle which caused the propeller to strike the ground. The pilot then executed an aborted landing. He stated that he was able to gain about 500 feet of altitude when he "lost thrust" and executed a forced landing into a bean field about 1/2 mile from the runway. The pilot reported no pre-impact mechanical failures. The pilot possessed a student pilot certificate, but did not have a solo endorsement for the accident airplane make and model. On-scene examination revealed that the nose landing gear had broken off during the landing attempt at the airport. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2005_CHI05LA137.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.