NYC03LA086
2003-04-16 · Blacksburg, Virginia, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport BCB
Current FAA registration · N21520
- Make / Model
- CESSNA 182P
- Year of manufacture
- 1973 · 30 years old at event
- Engine
- CONT MOTOR O-470 SERIES (230 hp)
- Seats / Engines
- 4 seats · 1 engine
- Last airworthiness date
- 19730131
- ADS-B equipped
- Yes — Mode-S A1CECC
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's improper flare and his improper recovery from a bounced landing.
Factual narrative
On April 16, 2003, at 1250 eastern daylight time, a Cessna 182P, N21520, was substantially damaged while landing at the Virginia Tech Airport (BCB), Blacksburg, Virginia. The certificated private pilot was not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed for the local personal flight conducted under 14 CFR Part 91. According to the pilot, he had attempted three landings to runway 30, a 4,539-foot long, 100-foot wide, asphalt runway. The first two attempts resulted in a go-around. During the third landing attempt, the airplane touched down hard and bounced back into the air. The airplane touched down hard again, with the propeller striking the runway, before coming to rest upright on the runway. When a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector examined the wreckage, he observed substantial damage to the engine compartment firewall. The inspector did not observe any mechanical deficiencies with the airplanes flight controls. The pilot reported 80 hours of total flight experience in make and model airplane. The winds recorded at a nearby airport about the time of accident, were from 270 degrees at 5 knots. The pilot had attempted three landings, with the first two attempts resulting in a go-around. During the third landing attempt, the airplane touched down hard and bounced back into the air. The airplane touched down hard again, with the propeller striking the runway, before coming to rest upright on the runway. Examination of the airplane did not reveal any mechanical deficiencies with the airplanes flight controls. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2003_NYC03LA086.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Search this event elsewhere
External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.
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Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around). All research papers
- 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…
- Semantic Scholar 2022 · Article (Journal of Safety Research) Go-around accidents and general aviation safety.
INTRODUCTION Changes in General Aviation (GA) accident rates, specifically in the go-around phase, are examined by comparing the number of accidents, the proportion of fatal accidents, and the proport…
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aerospace) Classification and Analysis of Go-Arounds in Commercial Aviation Using ADS-B Data
Go-arounds are a necessary aspect of commercial aviation and are conducted after a landing attempt has been aborted. It is necessary to conduct go-arounds in the safest possible manner, as go-arounds …
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Accepted Manuscript (Version with final changes) Go-Around Criteria Refinement for Transport Category Aircraft
Presently, airline pilots are trained to go around if, when lower than 500 ft above the ground, they are outside of a handful of parameters such as airspeed, position, and rate of descent.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper Validation of Proposed Go-Around Criteria Under Various Environmental Conditions
This paper evaluates the effects of environmental conditions on touchdown performance under varying approach states and validates proposed go-around criteria developed using data from a previously con…