LAX85FA197 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to Fallbrook, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85FA197
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N2907X
- Operator
- Carl D. Luke · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CATo Fallbrook, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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 object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ALTHOUGH AWARE OF EXISTING IMC CONDITIONS AND REDUCED LIGHTING WITH THE SETTING OF THE SUN, THE PLT ATTEMPTED A VISUAL APCH TO HIS HOME ARPT WHICH DID NOT HAVE AN APPROVED APCH. HIS REMARKS TO MCCLELLEN-PALOMAR TWR, REGARDING THE USE OF THE ON-BOARD LORAN RECEIVER, AND CHARTS FOUND IN THE WRECKAGE DEPICTING COORDINATES OF HIS HOME ARPT INDICATE THE PLT WAS PROBABLY USING THE LORAN TO GET A FIX ON THE ARPT. THE LOCATION OF THE LORAN DISPLAY ON THE INSTRUMENT PANEL REQUIRED THE PLT'S FLT-INSTRUMENT SCAN PATTERN TO BE INCREASED TO THE RIGHT OF THE NORMAL PATTERN. THE INCREASED SCAN PATTERN PROBABLY RESULTED IN THE DIVERSION OF THE PLT'S ATTENTION FROM THE FLT INSTRUMENTS, ALLOWING THE ACFT TO DESCEND INTO TREES. WITNESSES STATED DENSE FOG WAS PRESENT IN THE AREA AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85FA197
- Event ID
- 20001214X36205
- Case number
- LAX85FA197
- 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 1985-04-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f5fd26a1bfc97768bd49e0e81f30ac13032ebad6e977dba114e4e458078be335; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:19:30.108Z.