NTSB CAROL · Event
Event WPR23LA204
Registry · N5089
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
CESSNA 175A
Engine
CONT MOTOR GO-300 SERIES (175 hp)
Seats / Engines
4 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date
19711105
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S A65B3B
Registrant of record
GIFFORD DAVID M
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot’s inability to maintain altitude during an initial climbout in mountainous terrain after encountering a suspected downdraft.
Factual narrative
The airplane departed a private dirt strip in mountainous terrain with a left quartering headwind. During the initial climb, the pilot retracted the flaps from to 20º to 10º to improve the airplane’s acceleration. There was no change in airspeed, so he retracted the flaps completely and the airplane began a descent. He then extended the flaps back to 10º and initiated a shallow right turn to maneuver away from rising terrain, but the airplane did not climb. The pilot applied a nose down attitude to prevent a stall and the airplane impacted terrain and nosed over, in which the right wing sustained substantial damage. The pilot suspected he had flown into a downdraft after taking off and reported there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions to the airplane or engine that would have precluded normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Altitude-Not attained/maintained
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
- — Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Downdraft-Effect on equipment
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2023_WPR23LA204.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2026 · Conference Paper
Computational Analysis of Steady State Aerodynamics of Transonic Truss-Braced Wing Configuration in Deep Stall
This study presents a computational investigation of steady state aerodynamics of the Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) configuration over a wide range …
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Automating Bird Diverter Installation through Multi-Aerial Robots and Signal Temporal Logic Specifications
This paper tackles the task assignment and trajectory generation problem for bird diverter installation using a fleet of multi-rotors.
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Variation of Critical Crystallization Pressure for the Formation of Square Ice in Graphene Nanocapillaries
Two-dimensional square ice in graphene nanocapillaries at room temperature is a fascinating phenomenon and has been confirmed experimentally.
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Polycrystallinity enhances stress build-up around ice
Damage caused by freezing wet, porous materials is a widespread problem, but is hard to predict or control. Here, we show that polycrystallinity makes a great difference to the stress build-up process…
- arXiv 2022 · arXiv preprint
Enhanced Prediction of Three-dimensional Finite Iced Wing Separated Flow Near Stall
Icing on three-dimensional wings causes severe flow separation near stall. Standard improved delayed detached eddy simulation (IDDES) is unable to correctly predict the separating reattaching flow due…
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2021 · Journal article (JAAER)
Analysis on the Negative Emotional, Physiological, and Cognitive Responses Elicited from of the Activation of a Stall Alarm
Failing to identify an aerodynamic stall can lead to the inability of an aircraft to sustain flight. To warn pilots of an impending or fully-developed stall, many aircraft have safety devices installe…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗