LAX08CA237 · Cessna 172 M
Cessna 172 M · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Lemhi County Airport (SMN) to Lemhi County Airport (SMN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA237
- 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 172 M
- 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
- N9912Q
- Operator
- Scott Patrick
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lemhi County Airport (SMN), Salmon, IDTo Lemhi County Airport (SMN), Salmon, ID
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- 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
The pilot reported gusty wind conditions prior to his takeoff. During the takeoff initial climb out, the wind shifted and the airplane was not able to maintain altitude. The airplane landed hard beyond the departure end of the runway and the nose landing gear folded back into the airplane causing damage to the firewall. In the pilot's written statement he reported that he should not have been in such a hurry to take off and that if he would have departed 10 minutes earlier or later the winds would not have affected the takeoff. Archived AWOS weather for the airport at 1535 reported winds from 190 degrees at 7 knots. At 1515 winds were reported to be from 210 degrees at 8 knots gusting to 32 knots. Winds reported at 1555 were from 250 degrees at 14 knots gusting to 31 knots; with the winds varying in direction from 210 degrees to 280 degrees.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to take off in known adverse wind conditions that lead to an encounter with a windshear, the resulting inability of the pilot to maintain airspeed, and a stall/mush into the terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA237
- Event ID
- 20081003X17536
- Case number
- LAX08CA237
- 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: b551f2106c6a50ad1089f016265a87b16fc7b6a168cf51dd19ac913754e814f1; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:17:18.614Z.