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LAX94LA110 · Cessna 140

31 Jan 1994 · Palo Alto, CA, United States

Cessna 140 · Accident: nose over during landing

From Palo Alto Airport (PAO) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
LAX94LA110
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 140

Aircraft type
Cessna 140
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
N2396V
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Palo Alto Airport (PAO)To not recorded
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
Landing · landing roll
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
Nose over
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

  • Dual student › Brakes(normal), improper use of
  • Dual student › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
  • Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, poor

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE DUAL STUDENT WAS PRACTICING WHEEL LANDINGS IN A CONVENTIONAL GEAR AIRPLANE. ON THE LAST LANDING, THE CFI INSTRUCTED THE DUAL STUDENT TO APPLY THE BRAKES WHEN THE AIRPLANE WAS BOUNCING. THE DUAL STUDENT APPLIED THE BRAKES AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER ONTO ITS BACK. THE CFI HAD 12 HOURS TOTAL INSTRUCTOR TIME OF WHICH 3 HOURS WERE IN THE LAST 90 DAYS.

Probable cause

THE CFI'S INPROPER SUPERVISION OF THE FLIGHT, THE DUAL STUDENT'S IMPROPER RECOVERY FROM A BOUNCED LANDING, AND THE DUAL STUDENT'S IMPROPER USE OF THE BRAKES. THE CFI'S LACK OF TOTAL INSTRUCTIONAL EXPERIENCE IS A FACTOR IN THIS ACCIDENT.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX94LA110
Event ID
20001206X00653
Case number
LAX94LA110
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: cf7852131f165de92dbc1e84209c5a167bde06bfee61fb9b63c5e06591469b54; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:21:50.455Z.