LAX83LA282 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: nose over during landing
From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83LA282
- 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 172
- 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
- N739BD
- Operator
- James B. Porter · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NVTo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Nose over
- 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
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT NOSED OVER DURING A LANDING IN A FIELD NEAR YERRINGTON, NV. AFTER POLICE FOUND EMPTY BEER CANS & SOME UNIDENTIFIED DRUGS IN THE AIRCRAFT, THE PLT RESISTED ARREST & ASSAULTED THE OFFICERS. WHEN INTERVIEWED AT A HOSPITAL, HE STATED 'IT WAS HIS TIME TO GO' & THAT 'GOD HAD TOLD HIM TO CRASH THE AIRPLANE.' HE ALSO STATED THAT A BRIEFCASE WITH MONEY IN IT FLEW OUT THE REAR WINDOW & THAT HE TAPED THE WINDOW SHUT WHILE IN FLT. THERE WAS TAPE ON THE WINDOW; HOWEVERIT WAS FOUND ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83LA282
- Event ID
- 20001214X43404
- Case number
- LAX83LA282
- 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: 62658db0987d6826e6edc096b432f5ed839411048fdb78b837c0af70a8ce31ea; retrieved 2026-09-22T02:39:06.034Z.