LAX94FA318 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Q68 · Groveland, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA318
- 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
- 4 · 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
- N217AF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Q68 · Groveland, CA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft weight and balance, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE DEPARTING A HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE AIRPORT AT A HIGH GROSS WEIGHT, THE AIRPLANE CLIMBED ABOUT 50 FEET AND DID NOT ACCELERATE. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED DESCENDING BEFORE COLLIDING WITH TREES ABOUT 1/2-MILE OFF THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. WEIGHT AND BALANCE COMPUTATIONS PLACED THE AIRPLANE OVER MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE GROSS WEIGHT. THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS COMPUTED AT 8,493 FEET ABOVE MEAN SEA LEVEL. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION FOUND WITH THE AIRPLANE. THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT IS KNOWN FOR ITS HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE AND DOWNDRAFTS AT THE END OF THE DEPARTURE RUNWAY. REVIEW OF THE PILOT'S FLIGHT EXPERIENCE REVEALED HE HAD OPERATED AT ONE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE AIRPORT IN THE PAST, WHERE HE ACCOMPLISHED ONE TAKEOFF AND LANDING WITH A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to take off from a high density altitude airport at an over allowable gross weight condition. Factors in the accident were the high density altitude, down drafts, and the pilot's lack of familiarity operting from high density altitude airports.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA318
- Event ID
- 20001206X02065
- Case number
- LAX94FA318
- 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 1994-08-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d62f3acccc8fd7741657b5da622fcba98253a12259035e2f5625ee5d1451b3fa; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:02:59.776Z.