DEN89LA157 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From St George Regional Airport (SGU) to Bullfrog Basin Airport (U07)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA157
- 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 172M
- 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
- N9560H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St George Regional Airport (SGU), ST GEORGE, UTTo Bullfrog Basin Airport (U07), BULLFROG, UT
- 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 · aborted
- 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
- Substantial
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 PRIVATE PLT AND THREE PAX WERE MAKING A X-COUNTRY FLT. TWO OF THE PAX BECAME AIRSICK AND THE PLT ELECTED TO LAND ON A PAVED RURAL ROAD, TO THE NORTH, WITH WINDS HE ESTIMATED WERE CALM. HE SAID THAT DURING THE FLARE TO LAND (APRX 25 FT AGL), THE PLANE ENCOUNTERED A GUST OF WIND FROM THE RIGHT REAR, SO HE RAISED THE FLAPS AND ATTEMPTED A GO-AROUND. THE PLANE SETTLED ONTO THE ROAD, LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR FIRST, WHICH COLLAPSED. THE PLANE THEN DEPARTED THE ROAD TO THE LEFT, STRUCK A FENCE POST AND COLLIDED WITH AN IRRIGATION SYSTEM IN A FIELD. TWO WITNESSES (ABOUT 1/2 MILE AWAY) SAW THE THE ACCIDENT, BUT THEY COULD NOT CONFIRM ANY WIND GUSTS.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED, WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S SELECTION OF AN UNSUITABLE AREA (TERRAIN) TO LAND, UNFAVORABLE WIND, & OBJECTS (FENCE & IRRIGATION SPRINKLER).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA157
- Event ID
- 20001213X28800
- Case number
- DEN89LA157
- 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: b5df930906d06ab4ccdde127a617f6ae5a948ae41cd43800afc3ea7feeba02b1; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:26:18.103Z.