LAX05CA148 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Palo Alto Airport (PAO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05CA148
- 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 172N
- 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
- N737WF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CATo not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Dual student › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
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 veered off the runway and impacted a taxiway following a loss of control during takeoff. The student reported that while on the takeoff roll the airplane was on the centerline of the runway. The airplane started to drift to the right of the centerline. The student said he either released some of the pressure on the right rudder pedal and/or applied some left pedal to correct the drift of the airplane. The certified flight instructor (CFI) reported that during the takeoff roll, with the student at the controls, it "sharply and abruptly" yawed to the left and then "very abruptly rotated." The CFI attempted to regain control of the airplane; however, the airplane impacted "sideways on the parallel taxiway." The student and the CFI both stated that the airplane and engine had no mechanical failures or malfunctions during the flight.
Probable cause
The student's failure to maintain directional control and the CFI's failure to adequately supervise the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05CA148
- Event ID
- 20050525X00667
- Case number
- LAX05CA148
- 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 2005-04-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0811ca163f79ebeadd70da0a0f7f5a8355295c90386053387f3261fa4718ec59; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:00:34.321Z.