LAX94FA282 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From L12 · Redlands, CA to Sedona Airport (SEZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA282
- 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
- 1 · 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 172M
- 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
- N64193
- Operator
- Robert Koelsch
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L12 · Redlands, CATo Sedona Airport (SEZ), Sedona, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOTS PLANNED TO CLIMB IN A SERIES OF 360-DEGREE TURNS AND THEN DEPART THE AREA THROUGH A MOUNTAIN PASS AREA. THE SURVIVING PILOT SAID AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT THEY WERE LOOKING FOR A CABIN THAT WAS LOCATED IN THE AREA. THE PILOT SAID HE FELT THE AIRCRAFT BEING FORCED DOWN AS IF IT HAD BEEN 'STEPPED ON' JUST PRIOR TO THE CRASH. WITNESSES NEAR THE SCENE OF THE ACCIDENT TWICE REPORTED SEEING AN AIRCRAFT MATCHING THE DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT FOR ABOUT 3 MINUTES. THE WITNESSES STATED THAT ON BOTH OCCASIONS THEY OBSERVED THE AIRCRAFT PERFORMING LOW-LEVEL MANEUVERS DESCRIBED AS A SERIES OF CLIMBS, TURNS, AND DESCENTS WHICH AT TIMES WERE ESTIMATED TO HAVE BEEN PERFORMED WITHIN 50 FEET OF STEEP TERRAIN NEAR THE 4,540 FOOT LEVEL. AT TIMES THEY LOST SIGHT OF THE AIRCRAFT AS IT DESCENDED BELOW HIGHER TERRAIN. ONE OF THE WITNESSES STATED THAT HE THOUGHT THE AIRCRAFT WAS 'CHASING JACK RABBITS.'
Probable cause
the flying pilot's operation of the aircraft at an altitude that did not provide sufficient terrain clearance necessary to recover from an inadvertent, pilot-induced stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA282
- Event ID
- 20001206X01767
- Case number
- LAX94FA282
- 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: ec96733359bb2354a4fa13f5c5de036292ab0dced07f2d8b5c8515863841a159; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:04:45.941Z.