WPR09LA122 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD) to Big Bear City Airport (L35)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA122
- 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
- N6443E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD), San Bernardino, CATo Big Bear City Airport (L35), Big Bear, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After completing some practice maneuvers at an altitude of about 6,000 feet mean sea level, the pilot proceeded towards an airport located in mountainous terrain. The destination airport elevation was 6,752 feet and elevations in the area exceeded 8,000 feet. The pilot reported that as he flew into a ravine, he established a climbing attitude, but observed no change in altitude. The pilot continued flight into the ravine and noted that the airplane started to lose altitude. He then attempted to turn around and initiated a left-hand turn. However, as the airplane's indicated airspeed was about 50 knots and the airplane was close to the terrain, the pilot soon "realized he was not going to make it." He "aimed for the area with the least amount of trees," and the airplane impacted terrain approximately 8 miles from the destination airport at an elevation of about 6,100 feet. Although the pilot reported finding water in the fuel tanks during his preflight inspection, he did not report that the engine displayed any of the symptoms of water contamination such as running rough, momentary power interruptions, or fluctuations in power. Near the time of the accident, the calculated density altitude at the destination airport was 7,725 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from terrain while maneuvering in a ravine. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to continue flight in an area that exceeded the climb rate capabilities of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA122
- Event ID
- 20090222X33307
- Case number
- WPR09LA122
- 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. 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: 0c5df8cad06ae20d3ad7f3f5f73ce82c7e088ddc5ee76c90fc817ca49825c38d; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:46:09.004Z.