LAX97FA241 · Cessna TR182
Cessna TR182 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Camarillo International Airport (CMA) to Stovepipe Wells Airport (L09)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA241
- 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
- 3 · 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 TR182
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N757CF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Camarillo International Airport (CMA), Camarillo, CATo Stovepipe Wells Airport (L09), STOVEPIPE WELLS, 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
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Go-around, delayed
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot received a 1 hour checkout in the aircraft on the day before the accident. Before departing on a flight from Camarillo to Inyokern, & then to Stovepipe Wells, CA, he obtained a preflight weather briefing. During an en route stop at Inyokern, the pilot refueled the airplane before continuing to Stovepipe Wells. Before reaching Stovepipe Wells, the airplane was observed to circle an undesignated/unmaintained airstrip at Panamint Springs Resort. The airstrip at Panamint Springs was the only landing strip between the refueling point & the planned destination, & it was not listed on any aeronautical charts. Also, the runway at Panamint Springs was oriented in about the same direction as the destination airport with runway 25 for landing (uphill) and runway 07 for takeoff (downhill). The destination runway was oriented to 05 and 23. At Panamint Springs, the pilot landed on runway 25 with a tailwind, then attempted a late go-around toward rapidly rising terrain. Witnesses said the aircraft touched down long and fast, then hit a dirt berm near the end of the strip. Subsequently, the aircraft crashed about 1/4 mile beyond the departure end of the runway. Runway 25 at Panamint Springs had an uphill gradient of 5.5 percent and no windsock. The density altitude was about 6,000 feet.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to attain a proper touchdown point for landing, and his delay in initiating a go-around. Factors relating to the accident were: the pilot's attempt to land at the wrong airport, uphill slope of the runway, high density altitude, and rising terrain beyond the end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA241
- Event ID
- 20001208X08411
- Case number
- LAX97FA241
- 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: 8073227f84bcd3b23484eeeb934267b39fc29bd518d8bb8f96ef87bcc9508255; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:53:59.869Z.