N84697

On September 16, 1999, at 2030 central daylight time, a Cessna 172K, N84697, sustained substantial damage when the airplane struck an embankment and nosed over during an aborted landing at the Baxter County Regional Airport near Mountain Home, Arkansas. The airplane was owned by private individuals and operated by PRO AVIATION under 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91. The private pilot and his passenger were not injured. Dark night visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the personal cross-country flight, and a flight plan was not filed. The flight originated from Boone County Airport near Harrison, Arkansas, at 2010.

The pilot reported that during the dark night landing, he confused the runway and taxiway lighting and landed the airplane on the grass between the taxiway and the runway. He applied power to go-around; however, the right main landing gear struck the edge of the parallel taxiway crossover, which resulted in "failure of the nose gear assembly." The airplane became "airborne and traveled approximately 500 feet before impacting the ground in a nose down attitude and overturning." According to the pilot, the firewall was destroyed, both wing spars were bent, the fuselage was buckled, and the vertical stabilizer and rudder were damaged. The nose gear was destroyed, the right wing strut was bent, and the left wing tip was crushed.

The Baxter County Regional Airport runway 05/23 is 5,000 feet long and 75 feet wide with medium intensity runway lights. Runway 05 is equipped with a visual glideslope indicator, a PAPI(P2L) precision approach path indicator with two identical light units, placed on the left side of the runway. The non-towered airport is attended from 0800 to 1930. After these hours, the PAPI and runway lights are activated by the pilot clicking his radio microphone on frequency 123.0 MHZ.

On the Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report (NTSB Form 6120.1/2) the pilot reported his total flight time as 99.5 hours. He reported 63.6 hours of pilot-in-command flight time of which 23.3 hours were in the make and model of the accident aircraft. The pilot reported 5.3 hours total night flight time, of which 2.1 hours were pilot-in-command flight time. The pilot reported that the accident could have been prevented by "more training on night time operations."