NTSB CAROL · Event
Event CHI05LA137
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 ↗.
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Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2021 · Journal article (IJAAA)
Aerodynamic characterization of bio-mimicked pleated dragonfly aerofoil
The work inspired by the dragonfly wing corrugation positioned at the front wing's radius section lying at 40% of the total wingspan of forewing from the root section.
- arXiv 2026 · arXiv preprint
MARS-Dragonfly: Agile and Robust Flight Control of Modular Aerial Robot Systems
Modular Aerial Robot Systems (MARS) comprise multiple drone units with reconfigurable connected formations, providing high adaptability to diverse mission scenarios, fault conditions, and payload capa…
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