LAX99LA145 · Cessna 172H
North Las Vegas Flying Club Cessna 172H · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA145
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N3289L
- Operator
- North Las Vegas Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)To Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN), Grand Canyon, AZ
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Takeoff · roll/run
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- On ground/water collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was attempting a formation takeoff with another aircraft and initiated his takeoff roll when the first aircraft became airborne. At 65 mph, the pilot rotated and the aircraft veered right just as the wheels left the ground. The pilot stated that he was unable to regain control of the aircraft and the nose wheel collided with a taxiway sign. He said he then was finally able to regain aircraft control and took the aircraft around the traffic pattern and landed on runway 7. As the nose wheel touched down, the nose strut collapsed. Subsequent examination of the aircraft revealed damage to the firewall and right horizontal stabilizer.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during takeoff roll resulting in a collision with taxiway sign. A factor was the sign.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA145
- Event ID
- 20001205X00495
- Case number
- LAX99LA145
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 728f0b049ba21ce2a068e2207bb9fa891ff6b1791fac17efab4ba62561fab54e; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:29:53.820Z.