LAX95LA266 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: overrun during landing
From San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA266
- 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 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
- N7141J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT), El Monte, CATo 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Distance/altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHEN THE PILOT APPROACHED THE DESTINATION AIRPORT HE REPORTED HIS POSITION TO THE LOCAL CONTROLLER. THE LOCAL CONTROLLER INSTRUCTED THE PILOT TO ENTER THE DOWNWIND LEG AND TO SQUAWK IDENT. THE PILOT SAID THAT THE TRANSPONDER IDENT MODE WAS INOPERATIVE AND THE CONTROLLER TOLD HIM THAT HE WAS NOT IN SIGHT AND INSTRUCTED HIM TO REPORT ON THE DOWNWIND LEG. THE PILOT BECAME DISORIENTED AND CONFUSED. WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF ANOTHER AIRPLANE, THE CONTROLLER WAS ABLE TO VISUALLY IDENTIFY THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE AND PROVIDE THE PILOT VERBAL GUIDANCE TO THE AIRPORT. AFTER MAKING ONE MISSED APPROACH, THE PILOT TOLD THE CONTROLLER HE HAD THE RUNWAY IN SIGHT. THE CONTROLLER CLEARED THE PILOT TO LAND. THE CONTROLLERS IN THE TOWER CAB AND ONE GROUND WITNESS SAID THE AIRPLANE'S FINAL APPROACH SPEED WAS FAST AND ITS FLAPS WERE RETRACTED. THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT 500 FEET FROM THE END OF THE RUNWAY. THE AIRPLANE EXITED THE END OF THE RUNWAY, WENT DOWN THE EMBANKMENT, AND NOSED OVER.
Probable cause
The pilot's poorly planned approach, misjudged distance/altitude, and failure to make a go-around. The pilot inadvertently becoming lost and disoriented was a factor in this accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA266
- Event ID
- 20001207X04011
- Case number
- LAX95LA266
- 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: bdcc897b7d54a418f8b8ab09e7f14e2ada2762f65ce1207cdc409f80d7af4d77; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:08:41.161Z.