FTW98LA220 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during landing
From Page Municipal Airport (PGA) to 71V
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA220
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 172P
- 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
- N65759
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Page Municipal Airport (PGA), Page, AZTo 71V
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing a sightseeing flight and was second in a group of three to land. At 200 feet agl, a 'severe gust' turned the aircraft 30 to 40 degrees to the right and at a 40 degree bank. The pilot added power to go-around, and the aircraft began a slight climb. Due to approaching mountainous terrain, the pilot initiated an early turn to crosswind; however, the aircraft only reached an altitude of approximately 200 to 300 agl while in the traffic pattern. While on final approach for his second attempt to land, the aircraft impacted the ground 150 feet to left of the runway at a heading of approximately 195 degrees with full power and in a nose high attitude. The nose and right main gear were separated from the aircraft, and the airplane came to rest on its nose. Approximately one hour after the accident, the wind blew the aircraft onto its back. According to a representative of Scenic Airlines, Inc., the pilot's date of hire was April 24, 1998, and he was employed with the company for less than a month prior to the accident. In addition, the pilot was from California and was new to the geographic area. Density altitude at the time of the accident was calculated to be 7,854 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the aircraft during landing. Factors were gusty, crosswind conditions, the pilot's lack of experience in type of operation and geographic area, mountainous terrain, and high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA220
- Event ID
- 20001211X10072
- Case number
- FTW98LA220
- 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: d8db14ac3cd16a3368a0a64afc52f514789ee42bca21d4a2f10267535c61fc6c; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:09:17.861Z.