LAX05CA233 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Cottonwood Airport (P52) to Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05CA233
- 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 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N2958D
- Operator
- William Hyslip
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cottonwood Airport (P52), Cottonwood, 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vso), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Elevator, excessive
- Pilot in command › Flare, misjudged
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 stalled during the landing flare and impacted terrain. During the approach for runway 21R, the pilot noticed that the airplane was above glide slope, and added another notch of flaps. The airplane remained on glide slope until the landing flare. The pilot said he rounded out too late and overreacted by pulling back too hard on the control yoke. The left wing dropped, and the pilot pushed the yoke forward and to the right while increasing throttle. The airplane was no longer in line with the runway and was facing rising terrain. The pilot then pulled back on the yoke to avoid the ground. The left wing dropped again and the airplane pitched down and to the left, impacting terrain. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's misjudged flare, and excessive use of the elevator control, which resulted in a failure to maintain adequate airspeed and a stall/mush.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05CA233
- Event ID
- 20050907X01403
- Case number
- LAX05CA233
- 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: 8522c0f228515c99d79ab0b4df56a27a4d6898fd5b15d1149ea8278c3a9331bf; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:57:40.190Z.