Cessna 172 N537HF accident near Miami, Florida

Probable cause

The pilot's decision to continue the landing after a loss of visual cues during a night landing.

NTSB analysis

The private pilot indicated that after being cleared to land on the runway at the towered airport, he heard the controller state that the tower was closing. The pilot stated that, after turning onto the final segment of the traffic pattern and seeing the runway numbers, the runway lights extinguished. The pilot lost sight of the runway but continued to land. The airplane landed in the grass south of the east/west runway and impacted a taxiway light, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing and lift strut.

A review of the airfield lighting logs showed the lights were on at the time of the accident and transitioned to pilot-controlled lighting about 5 minutes after the accident. Further, archived radar data indicated that the airplane's last radar target appeared before the lights extinguished, which would indicate that the lights were on at the time of the accident.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for ANC18LA014 for the full record.