BFO89LA018 · Cessna 172I
Cessna 172I · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO89LA018
- 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 172I
- 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
- N8359L
- Operator
- Unknown
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Passenger › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS STOPPED ON THE RAMP WITH THE PLT ABOARD. THE ENGINE WAS RUNNING. THE PAX CROSSED IN FRONT OF THE ACFT AND WALKED TOWARD THE RIGHT DOOR TO BOARD THE ACFT. WHEN SHE PASSED THE PROP SHE WAS STRUCK BY IT. THE EXTENT OF HER INJURIES WERE NOT REALIZED UNTIL SHE BOARDED SINCE ACCORDING TO THE PLT, THE PAX SAID SHE WAS JUST GRAZED BY THE PROP.
Probable cause
THE PASSENGER FAILED TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE CLEARANCE FROM THE PROPELLER AS SHE ATTEMPTED TO BOARD THE AIRCRAFT. BOTH THE PILOT FAILURE TO SUPERVISE THE BOARDING OF THE PASSENGER AND THE NIGHT LIGHT CONDITIONS ARE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS TO THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO89LA018
- Event ID
- 20001213X27697
- Case number
- BFO89LA018
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-02-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a250b7d7f0b6dc09ad4a52fe47080b1c4e6832f799708dc65787f6a63b18c4d4; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:57:54.532Z.