LAX90FA179 · Cessna 152
Cal Aero Flying Club Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90FA179
- 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 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
- N783G
- Operator
- Cal Aero Flying Club
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED TO ABRUPTLY PITCH NOSE DOWN ON FINAL APPROACH. THE SOLO STUDENT PILOT AT THE CONTROLS HAD LOGGED ABOUT 28 HOURS TOTAL FLIGHT EXPERIENCE. ACCORDING TO THE STUDENT PILOT'S FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR, TWO HOURS OF DUAL INSTRUCTION WERE DEVOTED TO FLIGHT AT MINIMUM CONTROLLABLE AIRSPEED. THE AIRPLANE FLAPS WERE DETERMINED TO BE IN TRANSIT AT THE TIME OF IMPACT. THE FLAP JACKSCREW MECHANISM INDICATED THE FLAPS TO BE AT AN INTERMEDIATE POSITION OF 7 DEGREES WHILE THE FLAP HANDLE INDICATED 10 DEGREES. THE FLAPS SHOULD BE SET FOR LANDING BY THE TIME THE AIRPLANE HAD REACHED ITS POSITION ON FINAL APPROACH. THE STUDENT PILOT WAS IN RADIO CONTACT WITH THE CONTROL TOWER. THERE WERE NO REPORTS BY THE STUDENT PILOT OF ANY PROBLEMS WITH THE AIRPLANE. THERE WERE NO MECHANICAL FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS FOUND WITH THE AIRPLANE DURING THE WRECKAGE EXAMINATION.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED ON FINAL APPROACH RESULTING IN AN AERODYNAMIC STALL. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S DELAYED USE OF FLAPS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90FA179
- Event ID
- 20001212X23159
- Case number
- LAX90FA179
- 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 1990-05-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3bec270e235af7aa3fd756ff4c57349dfbcc38ed9278295da3d1c15e2c3e7758; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:41:59.599Z.