LAX91LA325 · Cessna 172N
Bridgeford Flying SVC Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From an unrecorded airport to OQ9 · Sonoma, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA325
- 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 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
- N5352D
- Operator
- Bridgeford Flying SVC
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo OQ9 · Sonoma, 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Emergency procedure, simulated
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Go-around, delayed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CFI PLANNED TO DEMONSTRATE TO HIS STUDENT HOW TO EXECUTE AN EMERGENCY LANDING. THE CFI CLOSED THE THROTTLE AND DESCENDED TO LESS THAN 50 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL BEFORE HE ATTEMPTED TO ADD ENGINE POWER IN TERMINATION OF THE DEMONSTRATION. AS THE ENGINE POWER WAS BEING RESTORED, THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED A FEW FEET, CONTACTED THE GROUND AND NOSED OVER. GUSTY SURFACE WINDS EXISTED. THE CFI REPORTED THAT HE HAD NOT MAINTAINED A 'SUFFICIENT BUFFER ZONE OF SAFETY' DURING DEMONSTRATION.
Probable cause
THE CFI'S FAILURE TO INITIATE THE GO-AROUND MANEUVER IN A TIMELY MANNER, AND HIS FAILURE TO TERMINATE THE SIMULATED EMERGENCY MANEUVER AT A PROPER ALTITUDE. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS THE GUSTY SURFACE WIND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA325
- Event ID
- 20001212X17613
- Case number
- LAX91LA325
- 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 1991-07-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 85dc9963dea5a624139db5bb2a5ab6b67c19d4b4785db5bad55fe257def3073f; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:53:57.626Z.