DEN88FA036 · Cessna A152
Cessna A152 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water
From THS · Tucson, AZ to LCR · Las Cruces, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88FA036
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna A152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N234ZN
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From THS · Tucson, AZTo LCR · Las Cruces, NM
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ABT 20 MIN AFTER TKOF, THE ACFT CRASHED IN VMC CONDS, APRX 26 MI ALONG THE ROUTE FM TUCSON TO LAS CRUCES. INITIAL IMPACTOCCURRED WITH THE L WING HITTING THE TOP OF A YUCCA PLANT AS THE ACFT WAS IN A SLGT NOSE DOWN, L WING LOW ATTITUDE. JUSTBYD THIS POINT, THE ACFT CONTACTED THE GND & SKIDDED ABT 90' BFR HITTING A SCRUB TREE & COMING TO REST WITH EXTSV DMG. THE THROTTLE WAS FND AT IDLE, MIXTURE AT IDLE-CUTOFF, CARB HEAT WAS OFF & THE FLAPS WERE EXTDD 10 DEG. NO PREIMPACT MECHPRBLM WAS FND. THE ENG RAN NORMALLY DRG AN OPNL CHECK. NO WITNESSES WERE FND. A CAMERA WAS FND WITH FILM EXPOSED ON A PREV FLT. AFTER DVLPMNT, IT HAD IN-FLT PHOTOS OF A TRUCK & A TRAIN TAKEN NR GND LVL. THE TRAIN WAS IDENTIFIED. ITS CREW RECALLED SEEING AN ACFT MAKING LOW PASSES AT THE TRAIN EARLIER THAT DAY (COINCIDING WITH THE PLT'S PREV FLT). PEOPLE, WHO KNEW THE PLT, SAID HE SPOKE OF 'DIVE BOMBING' SEMI-TRUCKS & TRAINS, FLYING UNDER PHONE LINES, LNDG AFTER INTENTIONALFUEL EXHAUSTION & MAKING A LNDG IN THE DESERT. ACDNT SITE WAS NR A RAILROAD, INTERSTATE HIWAY & MOVIE SET (OLD TUCSON).
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88FA036
- Event ID
- 20001213X32683
- Case number
- DEN88FA036
- 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: 0641e5be98dc72a340eeb827615db9a3b1d8822f3df915d9d70d969094236c0c; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:52:44.503Z.