LAX99LA217 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA217
- 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 172
- 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
- N6448B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP), Bullhead City, AZ
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 object
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot landed the aircraft on a county road and taxied near an automotive service station. The pilot told the service station attendant that he was unsure if he had sufficient fuel aboard to reach his destination. He purchased 5 gallons of automotive gasoline in a container, carried it to the aircraft, and poured it in the right wing tank. With his one passenger aboard, the pilot then started the aircraft, taxied back up the road, turned around, and initiated takeoff. The road has a slight curve in the area and the witnesses were concerned that the aircraft did not appear properly aligned with the road. Immediately after the aircraft became airborne the left wing tip struck the post of a construction sign, the aircraft veered left, struck the top of a chain link fence, and nosed over inverted. The pilot told a Sheriff's deputy that he hit the pole because he lost directional control due to a gust of wind. The deputy estimated that winds were from the southwest about 5 knots with frequent, abrupt gusts to about 20 knots, and the temperature was in excess of 110 degrees (Fahrenheit).
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for the gusty crosswind condition and subsequent failure to maintain alignment with the road used for takeoff, which resulted in a collision with a construction sign during the initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA217
- Event ID
- 20001212X19030
- Case number
- LAX99LA217
- 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: 76bfcff53738610df417582d8b6644261be0234085c997ddcf381fca70340153; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:30:31.282Z.