LAX93LA008 · Cessna R172K
Monterey Navy Flying Club Cessna R172K · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during landing
From Eloy Municipal Airport (E60) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA008
- 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 R172K
- 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
- N736WZ
- Operator
- Monterey Navy Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eloy Municipal Airport (E60), Eloy, 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Weather condition › Unfavorable wind
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Picacho, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE DEPARTING ON THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT THE PILOT CALLED THE FSS AND FOUND THAT NO ADVERSE WEATHER HAD BEEN REPORTED. THE PILOT THEN FLEW TO THE LOCAL AREA TO PRACTICE SOME BASIC MANEUVERS. AFTER COMPLETING THE MANEUVERS HE FLEW TO AN UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT TO PRACTICE TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS. UPON ARRIVING OVER THE AIRPORT HE BROADCAST HIS INTENTIONS TO LAND, BUT NO ONE RESPONDED. THE PILOT OVERFLEW THE AIRPORT AND DETERMINED THAT THE SURFACE WINDS WERE LIGHT AND FAVORED RUNWAY 33. HE THEN FLEW A NORMAL LEFT TRAFFIC PATTERN. WHEN HE FLARED THE AIRCRAFT FOR LANDING, A STRONG WIND GUST, ASSOCIATED WITH A DUST DEVIL, SUDDENLY RAISED THE RIGHT WING. THE LEFT WING STRUCK THE RUNWAY BEFORE THE PILOT COULD ARREST THIS CONDITION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNFORECASTED CYCLONIC WIND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA008
- Event ID
- 20001211X15898
- Case number
- LAX93LA008
- 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: 6341e2e408ad20363ece54b09720bb19d872b8d3ad30fdc822ddf22f68c219aa; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:33:07.566Z.