LAX85FA178 · Cessna 150F
Cessna 150F · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85FA178
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 150F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N8567G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH), MAMMOTH, CATo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, poor
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED BELOW THE CREST OF AN 8100 FT (MSL) MTN ON A FLT FROM MAMMOTH-JUNE LAKES ARPT (MMH), MAMMOTH, CA, TO RENO, NV, WHILE EXECUTING A LEFT TURN COURSE REVERSAL. THERE WERE NO WITNESSES TO THE ACCIDENT. WITNESSES REPORTED SEEING THE ACFT FLYING AT ABOUT 100 AGL ALONG HWY 395. THE WITNESSES ALSO RPTD LOW CEILING & VIS PREVAILED. THE PLT OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING PRIOR TO DEPARTING MMH & WAS INFORMED THAT THE MTN TOPS WERE OBSCURED BY LOW CLOUDS & SNOW SHOWERALONG THE PROPOSED ROUTE OF FLT. THE PLT STATED HE WOULD WAIT AWHILE & DEPART. HE WOULD RETURN TO MMH IF HE COULD NOT NEGOTIATE THE HIGH MTNS. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT WRECKAGE DISCLOSED NO EVIDENCE OF ANY PREEXISTING MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES. THE ACFT WAS DESTROYED BY IMPACT/POST-IMPACT FIRE.THE PROP ASS'Y DISCLOSED EVIDENCE OF POWER BEING DEVELOPED AT THE TIME OF IMPACT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85FA178
- Event ID
- 20001214X35942
- Case number
- LAX85FA178
- 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: 0e6575e2cbbc751ada3a9f57cb68d68e0651a3a814a07d3d594ee216e61c9bb7; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:06:22.448Z.