WPR12LA093 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Byron Airport (C83) to UNKNOWN
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA093
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N7582D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Byron Airport (C83), Byron Airport, CATo UNKNOWN
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness reported that he observed the airplane flying about the height of nearby power lines and that the engine was sputtering. The airplane then banked right and impacted the power lines before falling to the ground. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The non-certificated pilot was flying the airplane, which had been reported stolen. The pilot’s toxicology results indicated that methamphetamine and amphetamines were detected in the pilot’s blood and liver specimens. (Local authorities also reported finding a plastic bag containing “crystal meth” in the accident airplane.) Both detected drug quantities were above therapeutic levels and likely contributed to the pilot’s performance and failure to maintain sufficient clearance from the power lines.
Probable cause
The non-certificated pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from power lines. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s impairment due to performance-impairing drugs.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA093
- Event ID
- 20120205X10150
- Case number
- WPR12LA093
- 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 2012-02-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4a3fef4d9461b6370b80c9af24a88533e0a591050c98db0e65ea0ef98d9848cf; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:09:57.871Z.