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Atlas / NTSB / ERA25LA311

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA25LA311

2025-08-21 Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States Airport · GAI None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N505LP

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 172S

Year of manufacture

2000 · 25 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING I0360 SER (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20000822

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A64D8B

Registrant of record

WIFA (WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT ACADEMY) LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The flight instructor’s distraction during landing, which resulted in a long landing and subsequent runway excursion.

Factual narrative

The flight instructor reported that the student pilot had an tablet computer in her lap. During the landing flare, the tablet interfered with the student pilot’s control input. In an attempt to assist the student, the flight instructor briefly diverted her attention from the landing, to shift the tablet away from the control yoke. When the flight instructor looked back outside, she realized that the airplane had floated more than halfway down the runway and had not touched down. She took control of the airplane but decided not to attempt a go-around due to trees at the runway end. The flight instructor applied full braking, but when she realized that the airplane was not going to stop on the runway, she steered left down a small embankment, rather than risk a larger embankment at the end of the runway. The nose landing gear partially collapsed, and the airplane came to rest upright off the left side end of the runway. The forward portion of the airplane’s fuselage was substantially damaged during the accident sequence. The flight instructor added that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions with the airplane. 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).

  • Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Attention-Instructor/check pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_ERA25LA311.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 (runway excursion, go-around). 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 ↗