LAX89FA018 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Hayward Executive Airport (HWD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89FA018
- 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
- 2 · 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 172P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N52222
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hayward Executive Airport (HWD), Hayward, CATo 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER RECEIVING A PREFLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING THAT REPORTED THE SURFACE TEMPERATURE AS 55 DEGREES, DEW POINT AS 54 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT AND A CALM WIND CONDITION, THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT AND HIS PASSENGER TOOKOFF FOR A LOCAL NIGHT FLIGHT NEAR THE BAY. THE SUN RISE AND MOON SET TABLES DEPICT THE SUN AT A -7.1 DEGREE ALTITUDE AND THE MOON AT A -74.5 DEGREE ALTITUDE BELOW THE HORIZON AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. GROUND WITNESSES OBSERVED THE AIRCRAFT PASS OVER A WELL LIT STRUCTURE THEN EXECUTE A DIVING RIGHT TURN INTO THE GROUND. FOG WAS REPORTED IN THE VICINITY BY THE WITNESSES. IMPACT FORCES AND POST-CRASH FIRE DESTROYED THE AIRCRAFT.
Probable cause
LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT BY THE PILOT WHEN HE INADVERTENTLY ENTERED INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE, DARK NIGHT LIGHT CONDITIONS AND FOGGY WEATHER CONDITIONS, INADVERTENT FLIGHT INTO IMC UNDER VISUAL FLIGHT RULES, FAILURE TO PERFORM A WEATHER EVAULATION AFTER RECEIVING PREFLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING, SPATIAL DISORIENTATION AND LACK OF TOTAL INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89FA018
- Event ID
- 20001213X27079
- Case number
- LAX89FA018
- 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: 5bf5187835ec68cc0aaa076d6ddb135738224fa3329524bddf059cc79b2320c2; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:30:56.071Z.