LAX91LA078 · Cessna 172P
Patterson Aircraft Cessna 172P · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From an unrecorded airport to Red Bluff Municipal Airport (RBL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA078
- 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 172P
- 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
- N96306
- Operator
- Patterson Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Red Bluff Municipal Airport (RBL), Red Bluff, 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 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Wake turbulence, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACCIDENT SITE IS ABOUT 3 MILES SOUTH OF THE SACRAMENTO AIRPORT NEAR THE EXTENDED CENTERLINE FOR RUNWAY 34L. THE TRACON TRACKED THE ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT AS IT PENETRATED THE ARSA AT 1300 FEET MSL ON A NW BOUND HEADING. THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED TO TURN WEST BOUND AS IT DESCENDED TO 800 FT MSL AND CROSS THE EXTENDED RUNWAY CENTER LINE BEHIND AN ARRIVING AMERICAN AIRLINES MD80. THE CESSNA WAS OBSERVED ON RADAR TO CROSS THE FLIGHT PATH OF THE MD80 1 MILE BEHIND AND 100 FT LOWER THAN THE TRANSPORT BEFORE IT ABRUPTLY DISAPPEARED FROM THE RADAR. CONTROLLERS ON DUTY IN THE ATCT SAID THEY SAW THE LIGHTS OF THE CESSNA PASS BEHIND AND JUST BELOW THE MD80, THEN IT ABRUPTLY DESCENDED TOWARD THE GROUND.
Probable cause
THE FLIGHT'S INADVERTANT ENCOUNTER WITH WAKE TURBULENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA078
- Event ID
- 20001212X16338
- Case number
- LAX91LA078
- 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 1991-01-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7d03e0f7bda2d04c3a454789c6aa4ef5d5308c9a9cbc1f838e15ed2b6d755412; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:31:52.172Z.