LAX86LA168 · Cessna 140
Palo Alto Flying Club Cessna 140 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Palo Alto Airport (PAO) to Palo Alto Airport (PAO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86LA168
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N89374
- Operator
- Palo Alto Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CATo Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CA
- 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 · 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Dual student › Brakes(normal), excessive
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PURPOSE OF THE DUAL INSTRUCTIONAL FLIGHT WAS FOR THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT TO CHECK OUT A PRIVATE PILOT IN THE CONVENTIONAL GEAR CESSNA 140 AIRCRAFT. AFTER A SERIES OF UNEVENTFUL FULL STOP & TOUCH & GO LANDINGS, THE STUDENT WAS DIRECTED TO LAND. THE CFI & A GROUND BASED WITNESS REPORTED THAT THE ACFT LANDED NORMALLY. THE WITNESS REPORTED THAT DURING THE LAST PORTION OF THE ACFT'S ROLL OUT THE SURFACE WIND PROVIDED THE ACFT WITH A TAILWIND COMPONENT. THE CFI REPORTED THAT HER STUDENT 'CAME UP ON THE BRAKES' & SHE DIRECTED HIM NOT TO BRAKE. THE CFI FURTHER STATED THAT DESPITE HER EFFORT AT SAVING THE ACFT BY APPLYING BACK PRESSURE TO THE YOKE, SHE LOST CONTROL & THE ACFT NOSED OVER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86LA168
- Event ID
- 20001213X33307
- Case number
- LAX86LA168
- 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: 3df5654602d888e2d869abb76da34d6d2f1275da8405baf5f8e35edb80391641; retrieved 2026-09-23T14:52:44.331Z.