Comstock Air Services Cessna 182 accident
Cessna 182 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From Sacramento International Airport (SMF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89LA317
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 182
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N8579M
- Operator
- Comstock Air Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sacramento International Airport (SMF), Sacramento, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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, excessive
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, not identified
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Zenia, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE VFR FLIGHT, CONDUCTED UNDER 14 CFR 135, WAS ROUTINE UNTIL ARRIVING AT SHANNON AIRPORT. AFTER CIRCLING THE ARPT, THE PILOT EXECUTED TWO GO-AROUNDS, BECAUSE HE HAD NOT SLOWED THE AIRPLANE SUFFICIENTLY. HE STATED THAT HE LANDED ON THE THIRD APPROACH, BUT THE AIRPLANE'S AIRSPEED WAS TOO HIGH. REALIZING THAT HE WAS GOING TO OVERSHOOT THE END OF THE RUNWAY, THE PILOT INTENTIONALLY GROUND LOOPED THE AIRPLANE. THIS CAUSED IT TO EXIT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY AND COLLIDE WITH A FENCE. A POST-ACDNT EXAM DISCLOSED THAT THE FLAP ACTUATOR JACKSCREW HAD SEIZED IN THE UP POSITION.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO REALIZE THAT THE FLAPS DID NOT EXTEND, WHICH RESULTED IN EXCESSIVE AIRSPEED. THE SEIZED FLAP ACTUATOR WAS A RELATED FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89LA317
- Event ID
- 20001213X29420
- Case number
- LAX89LA317
- 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 1989-09-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 452d3522fe32509a91c31332f42dc79824218a05a58b4f2b0e871693bcd522ea; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:08:10.070Z.