LAX97LA214 · Cessna 150
Cessna 150 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to OL7
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA214
- 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 150
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N22406
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo OL7
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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/mush
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Raising of flaps, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was practicing go-arounds from normal approaches. The pilot said that on the fourth go-around she added full power, raised the flaps, and checked that the carburetor heat was off. The aircraft did not gain any altitude and started to settle, so she lowered the nose and that is the last she remembered. A witness to the accident observed that on the final approach the aircraft touched down approximately 2/3 down the runway. The pilot added power and the aircraft lifted off with what appeared to be 30 degrees flaps down. The pilot made a slight right turn and then banked to the left as if attempting to return for landing. The aircraft continued the left turn, with the bank increasing. At this point the witness reported that the aircraft lost altitude and struck the ground. The flap extension jackscrew was found in the full down 40-degree position. The POH for the aircraft states that flaps should be retracted to 20 degrees initially during a go-around. The aircraft was examined on-scene with no preexisting anomalies noted.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed which resulted in a stall/mush. Also causal was the pilot's failure to retract the flaps during the go-around.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA214
- Event ID
- 20001208X08174
- Case number
- LAX97LA214
- 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: 05dcfa191c57e8c2cddae56eafe68314558569acbb69b35fc7eb5afae152aa05; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:02:07.210Z.