WPR18LA205 · Cessna 177 Undesignat
Cessna 177 Undesignat · Accident during initial climb
From Gillespie Field (SEE) to Lompoc Airport (LPC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA205
- 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 177 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N3477T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie Field (SEE), San Diego/El Cajon, CATo Lompoc Airport (LPC), Lompoc, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1968)
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while departing on a cross-country flight from the 2,738-ft-long runway, the engine lost partial power about 100 ft above ground level during the initial climb. He lowered the airplane's nose, which appeared to restore engine power, then raised the nose again as the airplane approached the end of the runway. The engine then experienced a "severe" loss of power and the airplane subsequently impacted a dirt field at the departure end of the runway. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation, and review of data from the onboard engine monitor revealed that the engine was producing full power throughout the takeoff.
A Federal Aviation Administration inspector spoke to several witnesses who saw the pilot fill a truck bed with belongings from the accident airplane, including wooden crates full of avocados. The pilot confirmed that he had a "substantial amount" of cargo on board, and that he did not calculate the airplane's weight and balance for the flight.
Based on the available information, it is likely that the pilot's inadequate preflight planning resulted in his exceedance of the airplane's maximum gross weight, which lead to the the airplane's poor climb performance, the perceived loss of engine power, and the subsequent loss of control and impact with terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight planning, which resulted in his exceedance of the airplane's maximum gross weight, which lead to the airplane's poor climb performance, and a subsequent loss of control and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA205
- Event ID
- 20180728X51103
- Case number
- WPR18LA205
- 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, cause areas. 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: bb88961b0187ef375c421e4cba80ffa5a4a74f11dbe89effa2d30c8a2c32a7a9; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:01:09.462Z.