LAX91FA134 · Cessna 172RG
California Aviation Cessna 172RG · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA134
- 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
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
Cessna 172RG
- 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
- N6439
- Operator
- California Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU), Glendale, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Airspeed(vne), exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE TWO PILOTS RETURNED TO THE AREA WHERE THEY HAD PREVIOUSLY OBTAINED THEIR PILOT TRAINING AND RENTED THE CESSNA 172RG TO REVISIT THE TRAINING AREAS. THE AIRPLANE'S WRECKAGE WAS FOUND IN A SEMI-REMOTE AREA, STREWN OVER A HALF MILE. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECAKAGE DISCLOSED THE LEFT WING'S WING-TO-FUSELAGE ATTACH FITTING SEPARATED IN AN UPWARD DIRECTION. THE FRACTURE SURFACES DISPLAYED POSITIVE OVERLOAD CHARACTERISTICS. THE UPPER CABIN SECTION AND RIGHT WING BROKE UP AFTER BEING STRUCK BY THE LEFT WING DURING THE INFLIGHT BREAKUP. WEATHER STUDIES REVEALED THAT VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS PREVAILED. THE AIRPLANE IS NOT CERTIFICATED FOR AEROBATIC FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT OF THE AIRPLANE EXCEEDING THE CERTIFICATED NEVER EXCEED VELOCITY. THE OVERLOADING OF THE WING ATTACHMENT FITTINGS WHILE MANEUVERING WAS A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA134
- Event ID
- 20001212X16616
- Case number
- LAX91FA134
- 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: fcd8b7cd65af463e75e37afe78e96a01d21656da442bd68271732f794b49d963; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:54:47.584Z.