LAX83LA108 · Cessna 172C
Cessna 172C · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (TRM)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83LA108
- 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 172C
- 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
- N8347X
- Operator
- Don W. Odell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (TRM), Thermal, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 in flight
- 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 › Airspeed, below
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT CRASHED ALONGSIDE THE RUNWAY DURING TAKEOFF IN WINDY CONDITIONS. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE ACFT STAGGER INTO THE AIR AT SLOW AIRSPEED FROM A GRASS RUNWAY INTO A 20-30 KTS SANTA ANA WIND OUT OF THE NORTH. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE ATTEMPTED A SOFT FIELD TAKEOFF WITH 20 DEGREES OF FLAPS. AT 30 OR 40 FT AGL HE FELT THAT HE HAD HIT A WINDSHEAR OR A DOWNDRAFT. HE APPLIED LEFT RUDDER TO AVOID HANGARS ON THE RIGHT. THE ACFT HIT THE LEFT WING TIP AND NOSE AT THE SIDE OF THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83LA108
- Event ID
- 20001214X42246
- Case number
- LAX83LA108
- 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: 4f2fa95897eb3dc111890c109e1fdf68045c7862806cdf3034b0566f01cacd92; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:00:48.943Z.