LAX94LA113 · Cessna 175
Cessna 175 and Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: midair collision during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA113
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 175
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N7597M
- Operator
- Jerry Hansen
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O27To 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Piper PA-28-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N6171J
- Operator
- Larry Fowler
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O27To 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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(cfi) › Communications, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Communications, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Both aircraft were landing on runway 10 when they collided on the approach end of the runway. The pilot of the Cessna (N7597M) said he called on the CTAF on downwind, base, and final. He said the Piper called 3,000 feet over the airport for a practice engine out landing, but then he heard no further transmissions. The CFI on the Piper (N6171J) said they were going to do a simulated engine out emergency landing from 3,000 feet. He said he called his position and intentions on the CTAF, heard a Cessna in the traffic pattern, and looked for that aircraft. He saw a Cessna on final and planned to follow it. The CFI said the Cessna was turning off the runway as they were flaring when the collision occurred. The FBO UNICOM operator heard both aircraft. The Cessna pilot called on downwind, base, and final. The Piper pilot called once, when the aircraft was 3,000 feet over the airport. The Piper sturck the Cessna from above and behind.
Probable cause
the pilot of the other aircraft's failure to maintain an adequate visual lookout, and his failure to adequately communicate his postion and intentions on the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency. A factor in the accident was the pilot of the other aircraft's misidentification of the Cessna aircraft he was to follow in the pattern.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA113
- Event ID
- 20001206X00760
- Case number
- LAX94LA113
- 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: f6ee354cd85e278ddc9309e79cb1a05a8ba8661dfe41ff6bd4a9e6e7824f2cef; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:21:24.856Z.