LAX00LA194 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Borrego Valley Airport (L08)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA194
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N25213
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Borrego Valley Airport (L08), 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
- 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
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 encountered a crosswind during takeoff from an open dirt field. The pilot stated that he failed to correct for the crosswind and allowed the airplane to drift about 100 feet off course until impacting a tree. Prior to the flight, sheriff's officers had noted that the pilot had landed on a public road. The pilot reported to them that he had landed on the road as it was conveniently located near his business. The officers reported that for safety and other reasons, they would not authorize the pilot to depart from the road. In response, the pilot moved the rented airplane into the adjacent open field, which he believed was adequate for his departure.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for a crosswind condition during initial takeoff climb, which resulted a failure to maintain alignment and the airplane drifting into a nearby tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA194
- Event ID
- 20001212X21040
- Case number
- LAX00LA194
- 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: 97a7be9e8ea3d530bd1a1418fc7eb53b1e6b6b301e84fd1a60b2dd749980394c; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:53:34.763Z.