LAX87LA353 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's date. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87LA353
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Unknown
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
- N55186
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS RPRTD MISSING AFTER IT DEPARTED SAN JOSE, CA, AT ABOUT 1852 PDT ON 6/9/87. A SEARCH WAS INITIATED, BUT THE PLANE WAS NOT FOUND UNTIL THE WRECKAGE WAS DISCOVERED BY A HIKER ON 6/30/90. THE ACDNT OCCURRED NEAR KEARSARGE PASS AT AN ELEV OF 12,000 FT. WX AT THE ACDNT SITE WAS NOT KNOWN, BUT ABOUT 173 MI WEST AT SAN JOSE, THE 1846 PDT WX WAS IN PART: CLEAR, WIND FROM 290 DEG AT 14 KTS. THE PLT TOOK THE ACFT TWO DAYS AFTER HE HAD AN ARGUMENT WITH A GIRL FRIEND; HOWEVER, THE OPERATOR STATED THAT HE 'HAD PERMISSION TO FLY THE AIRCRAFT AT HIS DISCRETION AFTER (BUSINESS) HOURS.' PIECES OF WRECKAGE WERE LOCATED NEAR THE BASE OF A CLIFF. A DIAGRAM PROVIDED BY THE INYO COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT INDCD THE ENG CAME TO REST SOME 200 YDS EAST OF THE MAIN WRECKAGE. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT THE ENG WAS PROVIDING POWER TO THE PROP, WHEN THE ACDNT OCCURRED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87LA353
- Event ID
- 20001213X31249
- Case number
- LAX87LA353
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5eb6932df556879ff0aea0e885db9258802ee01e084a826813659cd3ebf6481f; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:07:00.809Z.