NTSB CAROL · Event
Event GAA17CA327
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The student pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during an attempted go-around, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Factual narrative
The solo student pilot reported that, during landing, the airplane "ballooned up and [he] added a little throttle [to] settle the [airplane]". He added that, "the [airplane] seemed to settle but felt like it was coming down too fast". He applied full power to go around and reduced the flaps to 20°. He added that, "the [airplane] was stalling and so [he] moved the flaps to 0 degrees, which caused the plane to continue to stall". Subsequently, the airplane impacted the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and empennage. The student pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The solo student pilot reported that, during landing, the airplane "ballooned up and [he] added a little throttle [to] settle the [airplane]." He added that "the [airplane] seemed to settle but felt like it was coming down too fast." He applied full power to go around and reduced the flaps to 20°. He added that "the [airplane] was stalling and so [he] moved the flaps to 0 degrees, which caused the plane to continue to stall." Subsequently, the airplane impacted the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and empennage. The student pilot 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).
- C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Student/instructed pilot - C
- C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Angle of attack-Capability exceeded - C
- C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Airspeed-Not attained/maintained - C
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2017_GAA17CA327.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall, 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.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Crash Testing and Simulation of a Cessna 172 Aircraft: Pitch Down Impact Onto Soft Soil
During the summer of 2015, NASA Langley Research Center conducted three full-scale crash tests of Cessna 172 (C-172) aircraft at the NASA Langley Landing and Impact Research (LandIR) Facility.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Technical Memorandum (TM)
Simulating the Impact Response of Three Full-Scale Crash Tests of Cessna 172 Aircraft
During the summer of 2015, a series of three full-scale crash tests were performed at the Landing and Impact Research Facility located at NASA Langley Research Center of Cessna 172 aircraft.
- NASA NTRS 2026 · Conference Paper
Computational Analysis of Steady State Aerodynamics of Transonic Truss-Braced Wing Configuration in Deep Stall
This study presents a computational investigation of steady state aerodynamics of the Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) configuration over a wide range …
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
A Training Study to Improve Monitoring During A Go-Around
As part of an FAA program to improve go-around (GA) safety, we were asked to determine if we could improve the performance of the Pilot Monitoring (PM) during a GA maneuver.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World
Go-Around Safety Forum Findings
Foundation Go-Around Safety Forum technical findings — examines why pilots fail to execute go-arounds when criteria are met (stabilized approach gate not met, energy state out of envelope, traffic con…
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Automating Bird Diverter Installation through Multi-Aerial Robots and Signal Temporal Logic Specifications
This paper tackles the task assignment and trajectory generation problem for bird diverter installation using a fleet of multi-rotors.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗