WPR13FA116 · Cessna 172S
Flying Start Aero Cessna 172S · Accident during an uncontrolled descent
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (KMEV) to Minden-Tahoe Airport (KMEV)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13FA116
- 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 172S
- 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
- N328SP
- Operator
- Flying Start Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (KMEV), MInden, NVTo Minden-Tahoe Airport (KMEV), MInden, 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
- Uncontrolled descent
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
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
The owner of the fixed-base operator (FBO) at the airport reported that the pilot stated to him that he wanted to go flying before it got dark. He added that the pilot had the airplane fully fueled and that he saw the airplane taxiing away from the FBO's hangar. An FBO employee who was monitoring the airport's UNICOM frequency reported hearing the pilot call for taxi then takeoff. The following day, the operator and FBO personnel noted that the airplane had not returned to the airport. A search was initiated, and the wreckage was located in the mountains 14 miles east of the airport.
Radar data showed the airplane at 8,600 ft mean sea level (msl) and then continuing on an easterly course while climbing to 11,400 ft msl. Ten minutes later, the airplane turned 180 degrees and then proceeded in a westerly direction. About 1 1/2 minutes later, the airplane entered a rapid descent. The final radar return was at 10,500 ft msl in the immediate vicinity of the airplane wreckage. The airplane collided with terrain in a nose-down attitude. Postaccident airplane wreckage examination did not reveal any mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot's radio transmissions were routine. Although the pilot had recently returned from Afghanistan to address a personal situation, and, therefore, was likely experiencing some fatigue and emotional strain during the period preceding the accident, there was insufficient evidence to determine the extent to which these factors affected the pilot's performance or ability to maintain airplane control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control while maneuvering over mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13FA116
- Event ID
- 20130207X04940
- Case number
- WPR13FA116
- 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 2013-02-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4058986e96e722a69047ecbd8a066f98a165a5acbb31155184d3ba768b3d8f6e; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:52:34.383Z.