WPR09LA432 · Cessna P206B
Cessna P206B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK) to San Jose, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA432
- 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 P206B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N206ST
- Operator
- Karen Trolan
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, CATo San Jose, 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported observing the airplane take off from the runway and enter a left turn. One witness, a rated pilot, stated that the airplane was climbing about 100 feet per minute or less during takeoff. It appeared that the pilot was executing the left turn noise abatement departure procedure and had completed an estimated 270-degree left turn. The witness further stated that as the airplane was "in line with runway 28," he observed the left wing of the airplane drop about 40 to 60 degrees, followed by a "partial recovery," before entering a "knife edge" and descending toward the ground. The passenger seated in the right front seat reported that, during takeoff initial climb, the airplane suddenly pitched upward. The passenger stated that the pilot leveled the airplane and the "right wing dipped." As the pilot leveled the airplane a second time, the "left wing dipped" and the airplane impacted the ground and nosed over. Examination of the accident site by Federal Aviation Administration inspectors revealed that the airplane impacted an open field adjacent to the airport. Examination of the recovered wreckage revealed that impact signatures on the nose, wings, and fuselage were consistent with a stall and/or spin. No evidence of any preimpact mechanical anomalies was discovered with the engine or airframe. Review of data obtained from a handheld global positioning system (GPS) that was recovered from the airplane revealed that the airplane initiated a left climbing turn after takeoff. The data depicted that during the climb the GPS leg ground speed fluctuated between 77 and 92 miles per hour. The last recorded GPS data track point indicated a leg speed of 89 miles per hour. Using reported and estimated weights of the pilot and three passengers, aircraft empty weight, full fuel, and the weight of the baggage removed from the airplane, the airplane was within center of gravity and maximum gross weight limitations. Testing of the stall warning system revealed contamination in the switch that resulted in intermittent performance of the system.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed for flight, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and subsequent impact with the ground. Contributing to the accident was the intermittent failure of the stall warning system due to a contaminated switch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA432
- Event ID
- 20090908X21520
- Case number
- WPR09LA432
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-09-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6e5437df50ba0f186cf26e9fcbc012a02bd5e61b3b35c02a16182dbd6491a5a5; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:54:35.356Z.