LAX06CA171 · Cessna 320
Cessna 320 · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during takeoff
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to Southern California Logistics Airport (VCV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06CA171
- 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 320
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N5799X
- Operator
- Charles Conard
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo Southern California Logistics Airport (VCV), Victorville, 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
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, 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 wing tip impacted the runway surface during takeoff and the pilot aborted the takeoff. The pilot said that the taxi and run-up were uneventful. During takeoff, he noted that the wind was coming from the left (south) and he set the flight controls for a crosswind takeoff. He advanced the throttles to takeoff power and rotated the airplane. As the airplane left the runway surface, the left wing was slightly low and he noticed that the airplane was not climbing. As he turned the airplane into the wind, the right wing dropped and the wing tip fuel tank impacted the runway. He stabilized the airplane and pulled the power to idle. The airplane stopped just beyond the runway. The pilot believed that a gust of wind or small microburst may have kept the airplane from climbing and influenced the right wing tip to impact the ground. The pilot stated that there were no mechanical malfunctions with the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for the crosswind condition and failure to maintain lateral control of the airplane during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06CA171
- Event ID
- 20060531X00657
- Case number
- LAX06CA171
- 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: cd3ae01d18222f026fcaf8b44c73de026ec626f5fb85327f4b9e95fc69dae9b4; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:55:37.374Z.