LAX03FA090 · Cessna 172P
Aero Club Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Camarillo International Airport (CMA) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03FA090
- 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 172P
- 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
- N65005
- Operator
- Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Camarillo International Airport (CMA), Camarillo, CATo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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 terrain/water
- 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(cfi) › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › In-flight planning/decision, improper
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 collided with mountainous terrain in a box canyon while attempting a course reversal. According to statements from both the Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) and the student pilot, they approached a 3,400-foot-mountain ridgeline at a cruising altitude of 3,000 feet mean sea level. To keep the most altitude between the airplane and the ground they flew up the center of a box canyon that approached the mountain ridge. The CFI initiated a climb to 3,500 feet. Upon observing that they were not going to clear the ridge, the CFI made a left turn and intentionally stalled the airplane in an attempt to make a survivable landing on the mountain slope. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate in-flight decision to cross mountainous terrain at a inadequate altitude to guarantee terrain clearance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03FA090
- Event ID
- 20030303X00274
- Case number
- LAX03FA090
- 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: b7f2baa5923a04a6e3e701ec21981b29eafb6e64c73ead981c2a1306aa66ac48; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:31:09.229Z.