LAX94LA144 · Cessna 421C
Cessna 421C · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while taxiing
From Meadows Field (BFL) to Chino Airport (CNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA144
- 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
- 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
Cessna 421C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N7039T
- Operator
- Arie Van Ryn
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, CATo Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Distance, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Taxispeed, excessive
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that when he had previously taxied to the ramp after landing he had noticed that his right brake felt 'mushy', and he had had a 'little problem' in making two 90-degree right turns. As he made two more 90-degree right turns, however, his brakes began to function normally. The pilot stated that before departure he checked the braking action of both his right and left brakes, and they responded normally. He then taxied toward runway 13 along a parallel taxiway. He stated that as he reached a 45-degree intersecting taxiway connecting with the approach end of runway 13, he applied his brakes to make the turn, without effect. The aircraft continued straight ahead, off the end of the taxiway and into a ditch, sustaining substantial structural damage. An inspection of the brakes revealed no discrepancies.
Probable cause
the pilot's use of an excessive taxi speed, and his misjudgment of the distance to the approaching intersection. A factor in the accident was the dark night lighting conditions which effected the pilot's perception of the taxiway layout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA144
- Event ID
- 20001206X00787
- Case number
- LAX94LA144
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-02-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c507cf0bd976037879c3d42147aa5345a7bad719187ea4a06f55b89ec37c3679; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:19:18.799Z.