LAX04CA175 · Cessna 177
Edwards AFB Aero Club Cessna 177 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From California City Municipal Airport (L71) to Rosamond Skypark Airport (L00)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04CA175
- 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 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N88BM
- Operator
- Edwards AFB Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From California City Municipal Airport (L71), California City, CATo Rosamond Skypark Airport (L00), Rosamond, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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) › Airspeed, 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 collided with terrain during the takeoff initial climb. Prior to departure, the certified flight instructor (CFI) noted calm wind conditions. During the initial climb, about 50 to 75 feet above ground level, the airplane began to descend, while rolling and yawing to the right. The CFI could not maintain control of the airplane, and it continued in a 300-foot-per-minute descent. The airplane impacted the ground and a fire erupted. After egressing the airplane, the CFI noticed a strong shift in winds into tailwind conditions. A few minutes later, he noted that the winds became light again, followed by periodic gusts and wind shifts. The CFI reported that the airplane had no mechanical failures or malfunctions during the flight. The CFI reported that the airplane's gross weight was about 2,341 pounds, and the published maximum gross weight is 2,350 pounds.
Probable cause
the certified flight instructor's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed, which resulted in a stall/mush condition and a collision with terrain. Factors in the accident were strong tailwind conditions and a sudden wind shift.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04CA175
- Event ID
- 20040508X00574
- Case number
- LAX04CA175
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-04-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 001410678e19c1cd57929db7253475c57b064862fecd1710dbc616e4a76995c4; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:16:08.263Z.