LAX94FA125 · Piper PA-28R-180
Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From South Lake Tahoe, CA to John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA125
- 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
- 0
- 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
Piper PA-28R-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N3775T
- Operator
- Donald D. Brannon · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From South Lake Tahoe, CATo John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, CA
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lake Tahoe, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT DEPARTED SOUTH LAKE TAHOE AIRPORT FROM RUNWAY 18 AND REQUESTED A STRAIGHT OUT DEPARTURE TOWARD RAPIDLY RISING MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. THE RECOMMENDED DEPARTURE PROCEDURE WAS TO PROCEED (ABOUT 1.5 MILES) SOUTH TO A GOLF COURSE AND CLIMB IN RIGHT TURNS TO 7500 FEET BEFORE DEPARTING THE AREA. THE PILOT HAD BEEN ADVISED OF REPORTED TURBULENCE WITH UP AND DOWNDRAFTS IN THE TAHOE BASIN. THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH RISING TERRAIN ABOUT 9400 FEET MSL, 6 MILES SOUTH OF THE AIRPORT. A PLASTIC STRAW WITH COCAINE RESIDUE WAS FOUND IN THE AIRPLANE. A TOXICOLOGY TEST OF THE PILOT'S BLOOD BY THE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER SHOWED IT WAS POSITIVE FOR BENZOYLECGONINE AT A LEVEL OF 0.223 UG/ML. OTHER BLOOD TESTS (AT CAMI) SHOWED 0.181 UG/ML OF BENZOYLECGONINE AND 0.050 UG/ML OF ECGONINE METHYL ESTER. TESTS OF THE PILOT'S URINE SHOWED 0.032 UG/ML OF COCAINE, 6.048 UG/ML OF BENZOYLECGONINE AND 0.834 UG/ML OF ECGONINE METHYL ESTER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPAIRMENT OF JUDGMENT AND PERFORMANCE DUE TO DRUGS, WHICH LED TO HIS FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE RECOMMENDED DEPARTURE PROCEDURE, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE/CLEARANCE FROM RISING MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE TERRAIN AND WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA125
- Event ID
- 20001206X00755
- Case number
- LAX94FA125
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: 8ef83208f76bc72b9d2389553bb8409841c832540b0d14d8b8da84fc71201d1f; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:14:48.145Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states "THE STUDENT PILOT DEPARTED SOUTH LAKE TAHOE AIRPORT FROM RUNWAY 18" and the airplane hit terrain 6 miles south of the airport; the departure was not recorded.