LAX04LA054 · Cessna 172S
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Cessna 172S · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP) to Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04LA054
- 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 172S
- 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
- N518ER
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP), Bullhead City, AZTo Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC), Prescott, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While maneuvering over rapidly rising mountainous terrain, the pilot entered a box-like canyon and collided with terrain. The flight school's management indicated that the pilot's approved flight plan specified an en route cruise altitude of 9,500 feet mean sea level (msl). The pilot said he deviated from the approval and descended initially to 1,000 feet above the ground, about 7,000 msl, to view features on the surface. Minutes prior to the accident, the pilot was flying over a valley. Unable to outclimb the rising terrain, which led into a box-like canyon, the pilot maneuvered the airplane until it impacted the mountainside, about 7,200 feet msl.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of an en route altitude that did not provide adequate terrain clearance, and resulted in the in-flight collision with terrain. The rising terrain and the blind/box canyon were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04LA054
- Event ID
- 20031219X02068
- Case number
- LAX04LA054
- 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: 82394a8e339400fe6445883d423f6cfb706924776351c59946bf5610e58dab2f; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:07:40.319Z.