LAX02LA199 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to St Johns Industrial Air Park (SJN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA199
- 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 172M
- 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
- N64307
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NMTo St Johns Industrial Air Park (SJN), Saint Johns, AZ
- 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
- 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 veered off the runway while attempting to land, and encountered soft soil, which damaged several structural elements. The pilot reported that he attempted to land on runway 21, but opted to perform a go-around because he could not obtain proper runway alignment. The Automated Surface Observation System and a fixed base operator attendant reported a shift in winds, and the pilot elected to land on runway 32. He configured the airplane with 5 degrees of flaps and prepared for landing. During approach, about 5 to 6 feet above ground level, the airplane experienced a loss of altitude and yawed to the left. During touchdown, the airplane veered off the left side of the runway. The pilot maneuvered the airplane back onto the runway and attempted to gain airspeed, in an effort to takeoff. The airplane veered off the right side of the runway and he reduced the power to idle. The airplane continued down a dirt hill, and came to rest after the nose wheel dug into soft terrain. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane. Winds at the airport were reportedly blowing from 250 degrees at 20 knots, with gusts up to 26 knots.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions resulting in a loss of directional control and collision with terrain. Related factors were the wind gusts, crosswind and soft terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA199
- Event ID
- 20020620X00948
- Case number
- LAX02LA199
- 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, coordinates. 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: 4f009ee523e4195379e6b1d6f9e550952eabd6f02cda479e57f3db8020b5f293; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:50:34.445Z.