WPR20CA055 · Cessna 175 Undesignat
Cessna 175 Undesignat · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Little River Airport (KLLR) to Petaluma Municipal Airport (O69)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20CA055
- 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 175 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N7095M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Little River Airport (KLLR), Little River, CATo Petaluma Municipal Airport (O69), Petaluma, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 61 years (built 1958)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after he completed an aerial observation flight, he decided to conduct a simulated engine-out approach to an open field. When the airplane was about 40 ft above ground level, the pilot aborted the approach by applying full engine power and elevator backpressure. The descent was not immediately arrested, but the airplane seemed to be accelerating. As the airplane continued to descend, it slipped left, and the left main landing gear struck a bush, which induced more left yaw and loss of lift. Subsequently, the wing struck vegetation and terrain, and the airplane then cartwheeled and came to rest upright. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to arrest the descent rate during an aborted simulated engine-out approach, which resulted in impact with vegetation and a subsequent cartwheel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20CA055
- Event ID
- 20200102X82407
- Case number
- WPR20CA055
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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. 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: 4598e9068bb1c3aca1217f8294c9735d49e21bf54b0480deee2beb8cd6bde0fb; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:51:42.174Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. KLLR is Little River Airport at Little River, CA; the recorded city name is misspelled.