LAX08CA053 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From Stark's Twin Oaks Airpark (7S3) to Beaver Marsh State Airport (2S2)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA053
- 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 172N
- 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
- N734KU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stark's Twin Oaks Airpark (7S3), Hillsboro, ORTo Beaver Marsh State Airport (2S2), Beaver Marsh, OR
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the pilot neared the airport, he decided to land as the passengers needed to use the airport's facilities. Using several visual clues, including some nearby vegetation, he estimated that the runway had a layer of snow on the surface several inches in depth. The airplane touched down on the snow covered runway and the airplane suddenly stopped, nosing over inverted. Once on the ground, the pilot found that the snow was in actuality over 1-foot deep. He reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision to land on a snow covered runway without first determining the depth of the snow.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA053
- Event ID
- 20080229X00248
- Case number
- LAX08CA053
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 7f3330d78ff7b74b43d849393e64943f5a160a593b2d53406dc5bdba8c3f842d; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:23:46.279Z.