LAX95FA198 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Fallon Municipal Airport (FLX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95FA198
- 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 172N
- 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
- N4773E
- Operator
- Walter L. Wardwell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fallon Municipal Airport (FLX), Fallon, NVTo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Low altitude flight/maneuver, performed
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESS OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE FLYING IN A SOUTHERLY DIRECTION AT A LOW ALTITUDE PARALLELING A PRIVATE CROP DUSTER STRIP. THEY WATCHED AS THE AIRPLANE CONTINUED PAST THE AIRSTRIP AT THE LOW ALTITUDE AND THEN COLLIDE WITH ELECTRICAL POWER LINES. ACCORDING TO THE POWER CO., THE WIRES ARE LOCATED ABOUT 1,056 FEET FROM THE END OF THE DUSTER STRIP AND ABOUT 37 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL AT THE POINT OF CONTACT. THE WIRES ARE NOT MARKED. THE LIGHT CONDITION AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WAS DUSK.
Probable cause
the pilot's intentional flight at low altitude and subsequent collision with transmission wires during dusk light conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95FA198
- Event ID
- 20001207X03481
- Case number
- LAX95FA198
- 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 1995-05-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 83dd9eb0471043068a4c3c6dbaf201857d3859322e40a77b203f7b0e940d1e7a; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:45:52.372Z.