LAX99LA176 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From 4AC · CORONADO, NM to North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA176
- 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
- CGIUX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4AC · CORONADO, NMTo North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)
- 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 · aborted
- 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
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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(vref), not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Rotation, premature
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During each of the three attempted landings the pilot received surface wind information from the tower that was reporting variable wind conditions from 160 degrees to 210 degrees, with the velocity from 12 knots to 22 knots, including higher gusts to 25 knots. The pilot was cleared to land on runway 12, but was unable to maintain runway alignment due to the winds and performed a go-around. The tower subsequently cleared the pilot to land on runway 25; however, the pilot was unable to complete the second landing attempt and performed another go-around. He reported that on the third landing he compensated for the crosswind condition, but as the airplane touched down it was blown right of centerline. He aborted the landing, applied full power, and rotated at 45 knots. Due to obstructions, he did not lower the nose of the airplane to gain airspeed. After clearing the obstructions, he made a turn to the right and lowered the nose; however, the airplane continued to descend. The pilot said that as the airspeed decayed through 40 knots, he knew the airplane was going to stall. During the accident sequence he did not recall hearing the stall warning horn. The airframe and engine were examined on-scene. No discrepancies were noted with the engine. Examination of the stall warning horn system revealed that the reed assembly was missing and could not be located at the accident site. Witnesses reported seeing the airplane at a low altitude and then saw the right wing drop prior to striking the chain link fence. The maximum factory demonstrated crosswind capability for the Cessna 172 is 15 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's premature rotation during the aborted landing and his failure to attain and maintain sufficient airspeed, which resulted in a stall mush. Factors in the accident were the pilot's decision to attempt a landing in adverse wind conditions beyond the crosswind capability of the airplane and an inoperative stall warning horn system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA176
- Event ID
- 20001212X18807
- Case number
- LAX99LA176
- 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: 180a18823833780bdfd16eee5a2d76532cc47fb659968304fbc53ec287fb39c2; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:05:57.244Z.