LAX90LA154 · Cessna 120
Cessna 120 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90LA154
- 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 120
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 120
- 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
- N72576
- Operator
- James R. Ohlin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Rudder, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Phoenix, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS PRACTICING TOUCH AND GO TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS ON RUNWAY 07. THE WINDS WERE FROM THE NORTH AT LESS THAT 5 KNOTS. DURING THE LANDING ROLL AFTER THE FIRST LANDING, THE AIRPLANE'S TAILWHEEL BECAME ERRATIC AND THE RUDDER CONTROL DIMINISHED AS THE AIRPLANE SLOWED DOWN. THE PILOT DELAYED IN APPLYING FULL POWER, AND WHEN HE DID, THE AIRPLANE GROUND LOOPED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT FAILED TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL BY IMPROPERLY USING THE RUDDERS/TALL WHEEL STEERING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90LA154
- Event ID
- 20001212X22957
- Case number
- LAX90LA154
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-04-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2587be04365dd6dfdf19a8df5f2f56193cbf3eff1c48279978e2d47c0db0c0e2; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:25:23.060Z.