LAX06CA252 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Calaveras Co Maury Rasmussen Field (CPU) to San Andreas, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06CA252
- 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 172M
- 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
- N12626
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Calaveras Co Maury Rasmussen Field (CPU), San Andreas, CATo San Andreas, 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Dual student › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Dual student › Soft field takeoff/procedure, improper
- Dual student › Stall/mush, encountered
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
- 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 stalled and impacted terrain during a soft-field takeoff. The student pilot was practicing a soft-field takeoff in preparation of his private pilot check ride. The student conducted the soft-field takeoff with the airplane established in a nose high pitch attitude. The student failed to reduce the wing's angle of attack and the airplane very quickly rose above ground effect. The certificated flight instructor (CFI) said that the student was a little slow in lowering the nose of the airplane to gain airspeed, but he (the CFI) delayed taking corrective action since the student's check ride was coming up and he wanted to see the student take action on his own. The student informed the CFI that it felt as though the right wing wanted to drop. The CFI took control of the airplane, lowered the nose and applied left aileron, but it was too late. The left wing dropped and the airplane descended to ground impact.
Probable cause
the student pilot's improper soft-field takeoff technique and failure to obtain and maintain an adequate airspeed, which resulted in a stall mush. The certificated flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the maneuver was also causal.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06CA252
- Event ID
- 20060923X01382
- Case number
- LAX06CA252
- 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: 3763e19873f8027331e5392cfd8b001011178aa8042fc7901adc4a48aaba6a4e; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:37:43.465Z.