LAX94LA179 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA179
- 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 177RG
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N35060
- Operator
- Cheryl E. Aurand · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN), Grand Canyon, AZTo 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
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT EXPERIENCED ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS WHILE EN ROUTE. SHE STATED THAT SHE TURNED THE MASTER SWITCH ON JUST LONG ENOUGH TO LOWER HER FLAPS, MAKE AN ADVISORY CALL, AND CHECK THE LANDING GEAR LIGHT. SHE ALSO CHECKED SEVERAL OF THE FIVE WIND SOCKS AND SAW WHAT SHE JUDGED TO BE A SLIGHT CROSS-WIND FROM THE WEST. WHILE ON FINAL, SHE FELT A SLIGHT CROSS-WIND. ON SHORT FINAL WITH FULL FLAPS, A STRONG LEFT CROSS-WIND CAUSED THE AIRCRAFT TO WEATHERVANE AND DRIFT TOWARD THE RIGHT EDGE OF THE RUNWAY. SHE RECOVERED AND ATTEMPTED ANOTHER TOUCHDOWN. THE SAME THING OCCURRED ON HER SECOND ATTEMPTED TOUCHDOWN, ALTHOUGH THIS TIME SHE OPTED TO USE A POWER APPLICATION AS PART OF THE RECOVERY. SHE AGAIN ENCOUNTERED A GUSTING CROSS-WIND ON HER THIRD ATTEMPTED TOUCHDOWN. BY THIS TIME, THE PILOT WAS CONCERNED THAT SHE WAS RUNNING OUT OF AVAILABLE RUNWAY AND, CONSEQUENTLY, THROTTLED BACK ALLOWING THE AIRCRAFT TO TOUCH DOWN APPROXIMATELY 250 FEET OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH TREES ALONG THE AIRPORT BOUNDARY.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation of the existing wind conditions, and failure to maintain directional control of the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA179
- Event ID
- 20001206X01126
- Case number
- LAX94LA179
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-04-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1745df0367a08dfc784be93d8788459eef68cfc26fc69655354b3f2c8e35d1ca; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:12:13.326Z.