LAX03LA042 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR) to Mobile, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA042
- 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 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N4465B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR), Goodyear, AZTo Mobile, 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, improper
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, 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 ground looped and nosed over while the pilot was performing touch-and-go practice takeoffs and landings at an abandoned gravel airstrip. While on approach, the pilot configured the airplane in a crab to the right, in an effort to counteract the right-quartering crosswind. On final approach, about 15 feet above ground level, the crosswind diminished. The airplane touched down on the runway surface while still in the right crab, with the right main landing gear making contact first. The airplane veered to the left, off the edge of the runway and the main landing gear impacted a dirt berm, resulting in a nose over. The airplane came to rest inverted. The pilot reported no pre impact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper compensation for the crosswind conditions at touchdown and failure to maintain proper alignment of the tail wheel equipped airplane during landing, which resulted in a ground loop. The crosswind was a contributory factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA042
- Event ID
- 20021204X05553
- Case number
- LAX03LA042
- 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: de4ae2aeddba7a66a7210d242cef3273707f3e12a5501b821a2a2ab12fc9257f; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:51:58.488Z.