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Atlas / NTSB / WPR13CA332

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR13CA332

2013-07-17 Santa Barbra, California, United States Airport · KSBA None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N971TA

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 172S

Year of manufacture

2002 · 11 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING IO-360-L2A (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20020923

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AD8906

Registrant of record

BANNER AVIATION LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's inadequate landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing.

Factual narrative

During the student pilot's first approach for landing she felt she was too high and did a go-around. On the second approach the airplane landed hard, and the propeller struck the runway. A postaccident examination of the airframe revealed a damaged propeller, and substantial damage to the firewall and fuselage floor. The operator reported that there were no known/reported mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. During the student pilot's first approach for landing she felt she was too high and did a go-around. On the second approach the airplane landed hard, and the propeller struck the runway. A postaccident examination of the airframe revealed a damaged propeller, and substantial damage to the firewall and fuselage floor. The operator reported that there were no known/reported mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine 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-Pilot - C
  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Landing flare-Not attained/maintained - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2013_WPR13CA332.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 (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 ↗