LAX03LA214 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From North Las Vegas Airport (KVGT) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (KRNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA214
- 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
- N6182U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (KVGT), North Las Vegas, NVTo Reno Tahoe International Airport (KRNO), Reno, NV
- 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 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
- Pole; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
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 impacted trees and a pole during a turn when the pilot turned away from rising terrain. During a turn to gain altitude, the air traffic controller queried the pilot and asked if she saw the road below. The controller advised the pilot that most pilots follow that road to her next checkpoint. A few minutes after turning toward the road, air traffic control advised that they had lost radar contact. The pilot continued to climb while following the road. As the airspeed continued to decrease, the pilot added 10 degrees of flaps. The pilot turned the airplane to the left in an attempt to avoid a stall. The left wing clipped a telephone pole and trees came through the windshield. A post accident examination revealed no mechanical malfunctions with the airplane or engine. Performance calculations indicated that the terrain along the pilots ground track rose in excess of the performance capability of the airplane, and that a climb above the rising terrain was not possible during the duration of the flight. The density altitude at 8,000 feet msl was 11,660 feet. United States Highway 95 runs in a northwesterly direction through a wide 4,000 foot msl valley between mountain ranges and toward the pilot's intended checkpoint; Nevada State Highway 157 runs in a westerly direction into the Spring Mountain range with peaks that have elevations over 10,000 feet. The pilot followed Highway 157.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate in-flight planning and selection of the wrong route of flight, which led the airplane toward rising terrain in excess of the performance capability of the airplane. Also causal was the pilot's delayed decision to divert her route of flight. Contributing factors were the high density altitude, and the rapidly rising terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA214
- Event ID
- 20030701X00986
- Case number
- LAX03LA214
- 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: 68c612567216b4eae5ae17dd62da297cb6cceb116f4b831f39f3c2ec9e352bd0; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:26:08.808Z.