LAX99FA027 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L and Cessna A185F · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99FA027
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 150L
- 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
- N19281
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yerington Municipal Airport (O43), 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Cessna A185F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- 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
- N204D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yerington Municipal Airport (O43), NVTo Carson Airport (CXP), Carson City, NV
- 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 pattern downwind
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident sequence was observed by airborne and ground witnesses. Both aircraft departed on runway 19. N19281, a Cessna 150L, departed first and made a slight dog-leg to the right in accordance with a local noise abatement procedure. N204D, a Cessna A185F, departed next and proceeded straight out on the upwind leg. The 150 was in a crosswind turn as the 185 began to close in from the 150's 7 o'clock position. The 150 was already in a left turn to downwind as the 185 began a left crosswind turn. The 185, the faster of the two, turned inside and continued in 180-degree crosswind turn until catching up and colliding with the 150. The 185 struck the empennage and left main gear of the 150 with its propeller and left wing, disintegrating the empennage. Comparison of the marks and damage on both aircraft confirmed the witness observations of the collision. The radio in the 150 was found in the 'on' position and was tuned to the common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) for the airport while the radio in the 185 was destroyed in the collision and postimpact fire. No transmissions were heard on the CTAF from either aircraft by any ground or airborne witness.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot of Cessna 185 to see and avoid the preceding airplane, which was already established in the traffic pattern. A factor was the failure of both pilots to announce their intentions on the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99FA027
- Event ID
- 20001211X11447
- Case number
- LAX99FA027
- 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: cae87c8f484175a7916ca2681250079b93494b94fd2aa23a14f8f6034dd7bd21; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:19:33.305Z.