LAX93LA176 · Cessna 172N
Konski Air Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Page Municipal Airport (PGA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA176
- 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
- N3443E
- Operator
- Konski Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Page Municipal Airport (PGA), Page, AZTo 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 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; Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft handling, poor
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ON DUTY IN THE TOWER CAB, THE AIRCRAFT MADE TWO ATTEMPTS TO LAND ON RUNWAY 21, EACH TIME FLARING ABOUT 10 FEET ABOVE THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT INITIATED A GO AROUND FOLLOWING EACH ABORTED LANDING ATTEMPT. ON THE SECOND GO AROUND, THE AIRCRAFT APPEARED TO BE LOW AND SLOW, AND, DURING A LEFT TURN, DESCENDED AND COLLIDED WITH TREES ON THE AIRPORT PROPERTY. THE OFFICIAL AIRPORT WEATHER OBSERVATION WAS REPORTING WINDS FROM 290 DEGREES AT SIX KNOTS DURING THE ACCIDENT TIME FRAME, WITH NO UNUSUAL METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA NOTED EITHER BEFORE OR AFTER THE ACCIDENT. IN HIS STATEMENT, THE PILOT REPORTED THAT GUSTING CROSS WINDS BLEW HIM AWAY FROM THE RUNWAY DURING EACH LANDING ATTEMPT. ON THE SECOND GO AROUND, THE PILOT SAID THAT A DOWNDRAFT PUSHED HIM INTO THE TREES AFTER HE HAD DRIFTED LEFT OVER THE WOODS. THE PILOT FURTHER STATED THAT HE LEFT THE CARBURETOR HEAT IN THE ON POSITION DURING THE SECOND GO AROUND. THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS CALCULATED TO BE ABOUT 8,700 FEET.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POOR AIRCRAFT HANDLING TECHNIQUES, HIS FAILURE TO CORRECTLY CONFIGURE THE CARBURETOR HEAT CONTROL DURING THE GO AROUND, AND, HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL MUSH CONDITION. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S LOW TOTAL EXPERIENCE AND THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA176
- Event ID
- 20001211X12171
- Case number
- LAX93LA176
- 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: ed1a25ea809a31af3cc7af145db904c3eb5610197cb1fd21f876e7383446a684; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:11:26.235Z.