LAX08LA187 · Cessna R172K
Cessna R172K · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Big Bear City Airport (L35) to Gillespie Field (SEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08LA187
- 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 R172K
- 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
- N758DH
- Operator
- Harold D. Patterson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Big Bear City Airport (L35), BIG BEAR, CATo Gillespie Field (SEE), San Diego, 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
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after a longer-than-normal takeoff roll, the airplane lifted off the runway with a climb rate of about 300 to 400 feet per minute. As the airplane passed the end of the runway, climb performance suddenly decreased and the airplane started to descend. The pilot verified the throttle and propeller control positions, advanced the mixture to full rich, and applied 20 degrees of flaps as the airplane continued to descend. The pilot stated that due to trees and residential structures within the immediate area, he decided to initiate a controlled landing in a lake as close to the shoreline as possible. Subsequently, the pilot landed the airplane tail first in the water, resulting in substantial damage to both wings. The pilot did not report any mechanical anomalies with the engine or airframe. He added that at the time of the accident, the airplane was about 190 pounds under the maximum gross weight. The density altitude was calculated to be 9,100 feet mean sea level and the pressure altitude was claculated as 6,328 feet msl. Using the calculated pressure altitude, density altitude, aircraft's maximum gross weight, and reported weather conditions, a representative from the airframe manufacturer calculated that the airplane should have attained a climb rate of approximately 500 feet per minute at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain and maintain an adequate airspeed that led to a stall/mush. Contributing to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for an off airport landing and a high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08LA187
- Event ID
- 20080625X00916
- Case number
- LAX08LA187
- 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: 9252aa7b73fdcb7c1d5dea077bd6d4450b372dccec7b2be11bab6a4d5d4b9744; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:48:49.682Z.