LAX05FA290 · Cessna 172RG
M. I. Air Cessna 172RG · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Catalina Airport (AVX) to L12 · Redlands, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05FA290
- 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
- 2 · 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 172RG
- 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
- N9636B
- Operator
- M. I. Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Catalina Airport (AVX), Avalon, CATo L12 · Redlands, 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
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 crashed into the Pacific Ocean about 2 miles from the north end of an off-shore island. The pilot, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aviation safety inspector (operations), sustained fatal injuries. The safety airman, who was also a designated pilot examiner (DPE), is missing and presumed to have sustained fatal injuries. The airplane sank, was not located or recovered, and is presumed to have been destroyed. The cross-country Event Based Currency (EBC) flight departed Avalon Airport about 1220 to return to the flight's origin airport. This currency flight was part of the inspector's FAA currency requirements. Avalon airport's elevation was 1,602 feet mean sea level (msl). Recorded radar data revealed a target with a secondary 1200 visual flight rules (VFR) beacon code at a mode C reported altitude of 1,800 feet msl just west of the departure end of runway 22. The target climbed on a westerly course, and made a right turn toward the north. After reaching the shoreline, the target turned left toward the northwest, and followed the shoreline. During the last minute of flight, the target's altitude remained at mode C altitudes between 2,600 and 2,800 feet until the target disappeared near the accident site coordinates, which was in line with the target's track. Two fishermen in a boat reported that they observed the airplane in at least a 45-degree nose low attitude. The attitude rose to 30 degrees nose low just prior to impacting the water. They observed the airplane float at the surface for a few seconds. It sank before they could reach the accident site location, which took them approximately 90 seconds. They observed one victim in the water, and pulled him aboard.
Probable cause
an in-flight loss of control for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05FA290
- Event ID
- 20050909X01430
- Case number
- LAX05FA290
- 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: a8a408f874f083c6439c69132db567e68a92a2c1da521b79099143c46e2a802f; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:53:57.196Z.