Cessna 172 Skyhawk Safety Record: What NTSB and FAA Data Actually Show

The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is the most-produced aircraft in history and, unsurprisingly, the most common single model in AeroPlanet's own FAA aircraft database. If you're considering one — as a first aircraft, a trainer, or a rental fleet addition — here's what our own data actually shows about its registration, accident, and maintenance-report history.

The fleet, by the numbers

Our database currently holds 21,448 registered Cessna 172 Skyhawks, of which 21,123 (98.48%) currently show a Valid FAA registration status.

NTSB accident and incident history

2,535 of those 21,448 aircraft — 11.82% — have at least one NTSB accident or incident record on file, totaling 2,871 events across the fleet. Of those, 91 involved a fatality.

Two things are worth keeping in perspective here. First, this is the total NTSB history across a fleet that's been flying, in large numbers, since the late 1950s — decades of flight hours across tens of thousands of airframes, most of it routine training and personal flying. Second, 172s are disproportionately used as primary trainers, which means more total flight hours and more touch-and-go landings (a higher-risk phase of flight) per airframe than a comparably-sized fleet used mostly for cross-country personal travel. Neither of those facts excuses a specific accident, but both matter for reading a raw count in context rather than at face value.

Want to see the individual NTSB records behind these numbers? Browse the full NTSB History for Cessna 172 Skyhawk →

FAA Service Difficulty Reports

1,879 of the 21,448 aircraft (8.76%) have at least one matched FAA Service Difficulty Report, totaling 31,751 reports across the fleet. That total volume is high relative to many GA models — and it's consistent with the pattern we found in our SDR-coverage research: SDR filing is mandatory for repair stations and commercial operators, and the 172's heavy use as a flight-school trainer means a larger share of the fleet passes through exactly those hands than a typical privately-owned piston aircraft. A high SDR count on this specific model reflects how thoroughly it's used and maintained under reporting obligations, not that the airframe itself is unusually defect-prone — see why SDR presence or absence isn't a stand-alone verdict either way.

The bottom line

Across 21,448 registered 172s, roughly 88% have zero NTSB history and roughly 91% have zero matched SDRs. The aircraft that do show up in either dataset are a real minority of an enormous, long-running fleet — exactly what you'd expect from the best-selling airplane ever built, not evidence of a model-specific problem.