LAX02LA068 · Cessna 206H
Lenair Aviation Cessna 206H · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA068
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 206H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N72635
- Operator
- Lenair Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, CATo Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH), Mammoth Lakes, 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
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted a snow bank and nosed over after the pilot lost control of the airplane during a landing roll in 45-knot gusty crosswind conditions. According to the pilot, he obtained numerous weather updates prior to departing and during the flight. All of the reports included notification of gusty wind conditions. The pilot obtained one more wind report prior to landing on runway 27, which informed him that the wind was from 210 degrees at 25 knots with gusts to 45 knots. The pilot continued with the landing and during the rollout, at 30 knots, a gust of wind lifted the left wing, blowing the airplane to the right into a snow bank. The pilot reported placing the control yoke in the full aft position (up elevator) after the original upset, when the airplane was encountering a tailwind condition. The airplane then hit the snow bank and nosed over. The airplane's Pilot Operating Handbook instructs pilots to put the elevator in a down position when encountering a tailwind condition. A review of the Airport/Facility Directory, Southwest U. S., revealed a caution to pilots regarding gusty wind conditions and wind shear.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for the gusty crosswind conditions, which resulted in a loss of aircraft control and nose over during landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA068
- Event ID
- 20020123X00111
- Case number
- LAX02LA068
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-01-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f6df60c9d6a66d4d9678be62b41632e77dd428d708d7b12e33f1b0956813903e; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:10:48.679Z.