WPR09FA258 · Cessna 320D
Cessna 320D · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) to Fallon Municipal Airport (FLX)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09FA258
- 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
- 4 · 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 320D
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N320KP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CATo Fallon Municipal Airport (FLX), Fallon, NV
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported seeing the airplane approach the airport from the southwest and cross near mid-field to enter the left traffic pattern for landing. Witnesses observed the airplane make a right 270-degree turn to enter on the downwind and, after becoming established on the downwind, make a sharp left turn and descend out of sight near a point consistent with a turn to a close-in base leg. Witnesses then reported seeing a fireball erupt in the area of the accident site. On the downwind leg, at a radar-recorded ground speed of 93 to 106 knots, the airplane's indicated airspeed could have been between 71 and 81 knots, which is in the range of potential stall speeds. Ground scar and wreckage signatures were consistent with a nose-low and left-wing-low ground impact. The witness observations and the impact attitude could be consistent with a stall and loss of control. No anomalies or other conditions were found with either engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate airspeed, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09FA258
- Event ID
- 20090522X35527
- Case number
- WPR09FA258
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-05-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: eb030305727ccc1360a020eb11d7f7fbd93844c45da88625a3746b47cc9cadc4; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:08:33.870Z.