LAX82FA291 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From 054 · Weaverville, CA to 054 · Weaverville, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FA291
- 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
- 1 · 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N48754
- Operator
- Barbara & William Horn Heiskan
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 054 · Weaverville, CATo 054 · Weaverville, 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 go-around
- 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
- Stall/mush; 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, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Distance, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT WAS PRACTICING TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS AT A UNIDIRECTIONAL RUNWAY. THE AIRPORT PROCEDURE WAS TO TAKEOFF DOWNHILL ON RUNWAY 18 AND TO LAND UPHILL ON RUNWAY 36. PILOTS, WHO FLEW AT THE AIRPORT, STATED THAT GO-AROUNDS WERE NOT MADE ON RUNWAY 36 SINCE THE TERRAIN AND TREES RISE VERY SHARPLY. WITNESSES REPORTED THAT DURING AN APPROACH TO RUNWAY 36, THE PLANE WAS ABOUT HALF WAY UP THE RUNWAY AND WAS STILL 30 TO 40 FT IN THE AIR WHEN THE PILOT BEGAN A GO-AROUND. THEY SAW THE PLANE CONTINUE IN A NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE, AT OR NEAR THE STALL SPEED, BUT GAINING NO SIGNIFICANT CLEARANCE ABOVE THE SURFACE. THE RIGHT WING STRUCK A PINE TREE AND THE PLANE CRASHED. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS ABOUT 4600 FT. THE RUNWAY WAS 3390 FT LONG AND HAD A 5 DEGREE UPSLOPE TO THE NORTH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FA291
- Event ID
- 20020917X03689
- Case number
- LAX82FA291
- 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: c5c1cb07b83c5114098bbdd0c83d8fe4aa48244e19575332d1a2e2cbff0b7b02; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:58:24.238Z.