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Atlas / NTSB / LAX00LA031

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX00LA031

1999-11-02 CHANDLER, Arizona, United States Airport · CHD None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's misjudged landing flare and failure to maintain an adequate airspeed margin, which resulted in a stall/mush and hard landing.

Factual narrative

On November 2, 1999, about 1140 hours mountain standard time, a Cessna 172N, N98909, sustained substantial damage during a hard landing at the Chandler, Arizona, municipal airport. Sawyer Aviation operated the airplane, which was rented by the pilot, under the provisions of 14 CFR Part 91. The private pilot, the sole occupant, was not injured. The local area personal flight departed Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, Arizona, about 1130. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed. The pilot stated that he flared high and the airplane landed flat on all three landing gear and bounced three times. The nose tire went flat and the propeller contacted the ground. Subsequent inspection revealed the firewall was buckled. In his written statement, the pilot said there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures prior to the hard landing. The pilot stated that he flared high and the airplane landed flat on all three landing gear and bounced three times. The nose tire went flat and the propeller contacted the ground. Subsequent inspection revealed the firewall was buckled. The pilot said there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures prior to the hard landing. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1999_LAX00LA031.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 ↗