LAX99FA266 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From 61B to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99FA266
- 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
- 1 · 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 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N29437
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 61BTo 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
- 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(cfi) › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Stall/mush, inadvertent
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was to provide airplane familiarization to the pilot who had recently purchased the airplane. Winds were from the southeast at 20 knots gusting to 25 knots. The CFI flew with the owner's son an hour prior to the accident with no discrepancies noted with the airframe or powerplant. On their flight, the CFI had the son do a simulated engine-out procedure in the box canyon where the accident subsequently occurred; the flight profile was similar to the one described by witnesses for the accident sequence. The son terminated the procedure and informed the CFI that he was uncomfortable with being so low over the canyon. A witness to the accident saw the airplane turn into the box canyon flush with the top of a bluff, approximately 100 feet above the canyon floor, and then make a tight left turn; the turn was followed by a dust cloud from the impact. He did not hear a sound change or sputtering from the engine, and described the engine as producing power. Emergency response personnel who flew to the accident site within an hour of the crash reported encountering swirling, turbulent winds as they descended below the canyon rim that made their approach into the box canyon very difficult. After obtaining witness statements, the flight crew flew the described flight path. They noted that as they initiated and subsequently completed the turn, the helicopter was pushed by the winds down and towards the accident site. The airframe and powerplant were inspected with no discrepancies noted.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the flight and his failure to maintain an adequate airspeed and altitude margin while conducting low altitude maneuvers in an area of strong gusty winds and terrain-induced turbulence likely to contain wind shear conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99FA266
- Event ID
- 20001212X19547
- Case number
- LAX99FA266
- 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: 9c52e98b75d8553534adcf1b37bfe6a1ade3b2046fb6aa1264d97c9b3af4809a; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:53:35.395Z.