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Atlas / NTSB / ERA23LA213

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA23LA213

2023-04-13 West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, United States Airport · AGC None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N544TH

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 172S

Year of manufacture

2019 · 4 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING IO-360-L2A (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20190311

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A6E879

Registrant of record

LUNKEN FLIGHT TRAINING CENTER LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The student pilot’s improper landing flare, and the flight instructor’s delayed remedial action, which resulted in a hard landing.

Factual narrative

The student pilot reported that at about 8 to 10 ft above the ground the flight instructor shouted “FLARE, FLARE, FLARE!” The volume and intensity of the command startled the student pilot who pulled back sharply on the yoke and the airplane stalled. The flight instructor subsequently took control of the airplane and before he could take corrective action the airplane impacted the ground resulting in substantial damage to the lower fuselage. The flight instructor’s account of the event was similar to the student pilot’s. The operator reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Landing flare-Not attained/maintained
  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Action-Delayed action-Instructor/check pilot
  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Student/instructed pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2023_ERA23LA213.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗