LAX92LA106 · Cessna 172N
Cottonwood Air Service Cessna 172N · Accident: hard landing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA106
- 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
- N6087D
- Operator
- Cottonwood Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Raising of flaps, premature
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT RECEIVED TOUCH AND GO TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS DUAL INSTRUCTION BEFORE BEGINNING THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT. WHEN THE INSTRUCTOR WAS SATISFIED WITH HIS TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS THE INSTRUCTOR ALLOWED THE STUDENT PILOT TO SOLO. THE STUDENT SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED TWO TOUCH AND GO LANDINGS AND TAKEOFFS. ON THE THIRD LANDING THE AIRPLANE BOUNCED AND TURNED SIDEWAYS. THE STUDENT APPLIED POWER AND AFTER LIFT-OFF HE IMMEDIATELY RETRACTED THE FLAPS AND FAILED TO MAINTAIN FLYING SPEED. THE AIRPLANE SETTLED AND THE LEFT WING CONTACTED THE RUNWAY CAUSING THE AIRPLANE TO CARTWHEEL OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY.
Probable cause
THE STUDENT PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRSPEED AND PREMATURE RAISING OF THE FLAPS. CONTRIBUTING TO THIS ACCIDENT WAS THE IMPROPER RECOVERY FROM A BOUNCED LANDING, LACK OF TOTAL EXPERIENCE, AND THE INADVERTENT STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA106
- Event ID
- 20001211X14020
- Case number
- LAX92LA106
- 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: 3fac64006b7c78e4d67c094281594abc7d8f3d7fdd5672657dd50eadfb8c0c09; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:21:36.225Z.