LAX00LA266 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV) to Sacramento International Airport (SMF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA266
- 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
- N67603
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV)To Sacramento International Airport (SMF), Sacramento, 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- On ground/water 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 › Aborted takeoff, delayed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
No discrepancies were noted with the preflight and weight and balance computations. On the takeoff roll the pilot elected to build up airspeed for the climb out due to a heavy passenger. When the airplane lifted off the ground he pulled back on the yoke, but the airplane settled back onto the runway. He continued the takeoff roll, built up more airspeed, and noted that when the airplane lifted off the runway it stayed in ground effect and did not climb. He noted that there was not enough remaining runway to land and come to a stop safely, and could not land straight ahead due to houses at the departure end. He attempted to return to an opposite runway and heard the stall warning horn as the airplane collided with the airport perimeter fence. The pilot reported no discrepancies with engine power output; the airplane was just unable to gain altitude. A witness heard a power reduction during the initial climb and noted the airplane was not gaining altitude. After crossing over the departure end of the runway at a low altitude, he saw the airplane make a left turn to land on the runway and saw the left wing contact the ground.
Probable cause
The pilot's in-flight decision to continue the takeoff and his subsequent delayed decision to abort the takeoff after he noted that the airplane was unable to climb out of ground effect.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA266
- Event ID
- 20001212X21510
- Case number
- LAX00LA266
- 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: 970ef1224a008cf8e2e428d1dec466ea6ba8093aa5f59bed20114b8a260f3d67; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:41:13.400Z.