LAX93FA007 · Cessna 172M
Travis Afb Aero Club Cessna 172M · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Sacramento International Airport (SMF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA007
- 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
- 1 · 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 172M
- 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
- N80780
- Operator
- Travis A.F.B. Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sacramento International Airport (SMF), Sacramento, CATo 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 · aborted
- 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 object
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT HALF WAY DOWN THE 2,000 FT RUNWAY. THE PILOT ADDED POWER AND EXECUTED A GO-AROUND. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK A POWER POLE LOCATED 38 FT ABOVE THE RUNWAY ELEVATION AND 958 FT FROM THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. THE AIRPLANE CAME TO REST INVERTED IN AN ADJACENT FIELD. THE FLAPS WERE FOUND DOWN 10 DEG AND THE CARBURETOR HEAT WAS IN THE ON POSITION. THE PILOT HAD NOT RECORDED ANY NIGHT FLYING EXPERIENCE IN THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DELAY IN INITIATING A GO-AROUND DURING A NIGHT LANDING. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT MISJUDGING DISTANCE AND SPEED RESULTING A OVERSHOOTING THE TOUCHDOWN, THE NIGHT LIGHT CONDITION, HIS LACK OF NIGHT FLYING EXPERIENCE IN A CESSNA 172, AND HIS FAILURE TO TURN OFF THE CARBURETOR HEAT DURING THE GO-AROUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA007
- Event ID
- 20001211X15887
- Case number
- LAX93FA007
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-10-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 540e49fbf9869bacf26e47f1cabc6355227d23619e184072b8d7e052995693f6; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:51:57.551Z.