LAX03LA068 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Mesa Del Rey Airport (KIC) to Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA068
- 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 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
- N25562
- Operator
- Squadron 2
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mesa Del Rey Airport (KIC), King City, CATo Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, 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 › Proper alignment, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On the landing rollout the airplane encountered a crosswind, veered off the runway, and nosed over. The student stated that he made a normal approach to runway 13, correcting for a small crosswind from the left. On final the airplane was at 65 knots with 30 degrees of flaps extended. The right wheel touched down first followed by the nose wheel. The left wheel had almost made contact with the ground when a crosswind from the left lifted up the left wing, which caused the airplane to veer to the left. The pilot attempted to correct the airplane from turning left by applying right rudder, right brake, and simultaneously turning the ailerons to the left. The airplane continued in the turn, and the pilot noted that as he added aileron the airplane would continue to increase the turn to the left. At that point he decided to abort the landing. He added full power, which caused the turn to increase. The airplane had departed the runway and was headed for a runway sign in a dirt area. He decided to add left rudder to complete the turn to the left to avoid the runway sign. Once the nose wheel contacted the wet dirt, it dug into the ground and broke off. The airplane came to rest inverted. The student pilot stated that there were no mechanical anomalies with the airplane.
Probable cause
The student pilot's inadequate compensation and his failure to maintain directional control. Contributing factors were wet and dirt terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA068
- Event ID
- 20030124X00106
- Case number
- LAX03LA068
- 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: cb7043128027e68040fcc96ebea285e2e5063e8ce55ec7cf45eb40b71d84a307; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:40:12.201Z.