LAX89LA116 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Yuba County Airport (MYV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89LA116
- 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 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N2377Y
- Operator
- Fuller, Lester · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuba County Airport (MYV), Marysville, 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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/mush
- 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
- Airspeed › Inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Go-around, delayed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG A DUAL INSTRUCTIONAL FLT, THE INSTRUCTOR (CFI) SIMULATED A FORCED LANDING BY REDUCING THE POWER. THE STUDENT MNVRD THE ACFT TO MAKE AN APCH TO A NEARBY AIRSTRIP. IN A STATEMENT AFTER THE ACDNT, THE CFI SAID THAT 'AS THE TURN TO BASE WAS STARTED, THE STUDENT ASKED IF HE WAS GOING TO 'MAKE' IT, AND I RESPONDED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE. AT THAT POINT, HE (THE STUDENT) ADDED A SMALL AMOUNT OF POWER AND I TOLD HIM HE DID NOT HAVE POWER, AS I RETARDED THE THROTTLE AND AGAIN LOOKED OVER HIS SHOULDER TO VIEW THE RUNWAY. WITHIN SECONDS, I COULD FEEL AN ACCELERATED SINK RATE, AND OBSERVED THE RUNWAY DISAPPEARING AT THE TOP OF THE SIDE WINDOW . . .' THE CFI INITIATED A GO-AROUND; HOWEVER, BEFORE THE DSCNT WAS ARRESTED, THE ACFT CONTACTED THE GROUND. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE HORIZONTAL STABILIZERS, NOSE GEAR, PROP & WING TIPS WERE DAMAGED. THERE WERE NO RPRTD MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES WITH THE ACFT BEFORE THE ACDNT.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE INSTRUCTOR (CFI) WHICH RESULTED IN A DELAYED GO-AROUND, INADEQUATE AIRSPEED, AND A STALL/MUSH INTO THE GROUND. A POOR APPROACH BY THE STUDENT PILOT WAS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89LA116
- Event ID
- 20001213X27753
- Case number
- LAX89LA116
- 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: 46bdf61fe8c283da5e025921293af63217e10ef7726a5ea0394cecbc48e6c90b; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:51:21.389Z.