LAX07CA201 · Cessna 172K
Cessna 172K · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Newcastle, UT to Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07CA201
- 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 172K
- 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
- N84888
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newcastle, UTTo Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC), Cedar City, UT
- 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
- 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 airplane collided with a dirt mound during an aborted takeoff from a dry lake bed. The student was familiar with the area and the dry lake, having previously landed there with his certified flight instructor and during solo flight training. During the accident sequence, the student attempted to depart utilizing a soft field technique in a gusty crosswind condition. The student took off in a westerly direction with the wind from about 200 degrees at 10 knots, with 15 knot gusts. A gust of wind was encountered after lifting off the ground, the airplane yawed while in ground effect, and the student elected to discontinue taking off. The aircraft touched down beyond the lake bed surface in a field of sparsely spaced small dirt mounds and bushes. Before the pilot could stop the airplane, it encountered a dirt mound with one landing gear.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for the gusty and crosswind condition, and his failure to maintain control of the airplane during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07CA201
- Event ID
- 20070804X01105
- Case number
- LAX07CA201
- 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: 9ed8eb391bdab1c5095262c180d7389bbb80b08aa19c0bff32f423c41881fe07; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:41:47.417Z.