2022 Cessna 172 N8056L accident
Mark Jenkins Cessna 172H · Controlled flight into terrain, under investigation
From an unrecorded airport to Oxnard Airport (OXR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA076
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 2
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 2
- 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 172H
- 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
- N8056L
- Operator
- Mark Jenkins
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Oxnard Airport (OXR), Oxnard, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1967)
- 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
- Fuel related
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
The Cessna 172 N8056L accident was an air accident and a railway incident that occurred on 9 January 2022 in the city of Los Angeles, in the United States. The accident left two injured, among them the pilot of the single-engine airplane (the only person on board) and a passenger on the train.
Accident
The airplane took off from Whiteman airport in the San Fernando Valley, in California. On board was only the pilot of the single-engine airplane, who moments after takeoff, in contact with the airport tower, issued a "mayday" call. Due to a failure, as yet unknown, the pilot attempted to make a forced landing on the opposite threshold of the airport. Realizing his speed in relation to the runway, the pilot changed his mind, attempting a forced landing on the train tracks in the Pacoima area, metres outside the airport boundaries. In this way, running over anyone who might have been on the road was avoided.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
After the accident, all air and rail traffic in the region was suspended for the removal of the wreckage from the tracks. The LAPD and the city fire department secured the scene until the best procedure to be adopted was assessed. The Cessna 172 was partially destroyed and the locomotive suffered minor damage and was sent for inspection and maintenance.
The Federal Aviation Administration began an investigation to determine the causes of the accident. After the clearing of the railway and a technical analysis, the tracks were reopened.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Portuguese Wikipedia article “Acidente do Cessna 172 prefixo N8056L em 2022” (revision 69442412, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane was stored outdoors for several weeks before the accident flight. The pilot observed water in the left fuel tank during the preflight inspection and he extracted about 1 ounce of water before he derived that there wasn’t much water in the fuel system. He started the engine, taxied onto the runway, and took off to the southeast. During the initial climb, the engine lost power about 200 ft above ground level. The pilot declared an emergency to the tower controller and initiated a descending right turn. The airplane impacted the ground and came to rest on an active railroad crossing. The pilot was extracted from the accident airplane moments before it was struck by a passenger train. During the weeks prior to the accident, it had rained for 18 days. Postaccident examination of the airframe revealed that the right and left wing tank fuel cap gaskets were deteriorated and were not intact. Excessive quantities of corrosion and rust were observed throughout the gascolator and the carburetor. Postaccident examination of the airplane’s engine revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have prevented normal operation. It is likely that the deteriorated fuel caps allowed water to enter the fuel tanks when rain was present and that water remained in the airplane's fuel system after the pilot’s preflight inspection and engine runup. A total loss of power during the initial climbout likely occurred when the contaminated fuel reached the engine.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight inspection during which he failed to remove all water contamination in the fuel system, which resulted in a total loss of engine power on takeoff. Contributing to the accident was the condition of the fuel caps, which allowed the water to enter the fuel system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Portuguese Wikipedia article: Acidente do Cessna 172 prefixo N8056L em 2022
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 69442412 · 2025-01-26 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q110677957
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record WPR22LA076
- Event ID
- 20220110104510
- Case number
- WPR22LA076
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- pt Wikipedia article "Acidente do Cessna 172 prefixo N8056L em 2022" (page 6776414, revision 69442412), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case WPR22LA076 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record WPR22LA076: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record WPR22LA076
- Map position
- NTSB record WPR22LA076: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record WPR22LA076: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record WPR22LA076: operated under Part 91: General Aviation
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities (the NTSB record states no total)
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record WPR22LA076: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2022 Cessna 172 N8056L accident" and NTSB case WPR22LA076, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- 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.