Mccarthy Aviation Cessna 172N accident
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From General William J Fox Airfield (WJF) to Meadows Field (BFL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA046
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
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
- N737WZ
- Operator
- Mccarthy Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General William J Fox Airfield (WJF), Lancaster, CATo Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, CA
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED INTO A 7,800-FT MOUNTAIN AT THE 6,400-FT LEVEL, APRX 1 MI NORTH OF A PLANNED ROUTE. THE PILOT HAD FLOWN THE COURSE OVER 100 TIMES DURING THE PREVIOUS 6 MONTHS. WITNESSES REPORTED THAT INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS PREVAILED OVER THE MOUNTAINOUS FLIGHT ROUTE. THE PILOT HAD ON PREVIOUS OCCASIONS GIVEN DUAL INSTRUMENT FLIGHT INSTRUCTION TO PASSENGERS DURING AIR TAXI CARGO FLIGHTS IN IMC. EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT BOTH OCCUPANTS SURVIVED THE CRASH; THE FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST WHO PERFORMED THE AUTOPSIES REPORTED THAT THE OCCUPANTS MIGHT HAVE SURVIVED IF THEY HAD BEEN PROMPTLY RESCUED. AN ELT SIGNAL WAS FIRST HEARD AT 1815. AT 1900 THE FAA RCVD A TELEPHONE CALL FROM A CONCERNED RELATIVE OF THE PILOT. AT 1956 A NAVY PILOT REPORTED THAT HE HAD PICKED UP A MAYDAY CALL. THE RESCUE COORDINATION CENTER AT SCOTT AFB OPENED THE INCIDENT CASE FOR THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE FOLLOWING RECEIPT OF NOTIFICATION FROM THE FAA AT 2001. THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND THE FOLLOWING DAY AT 1735.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DECISION TO CRUISE AT AN ALTITUDE INADEQUATE TO ENSURE TERRAIN CLEARANCE. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO OBTAIN A PREFLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING, THE DARK NIGHT, AND LIKELY INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA046
- Event ID
- 20001211X16050
- Case number
- LAX93FA046
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1992-11-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0b298b1e1e42da35d9d743855f3647cd8739ea54cc4dff328de424ecefd08f98; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:55:21.784Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N737WZ; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.