Ameriflight Flight 107
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR) to Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA149
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N78DE
- Operator
- Ameriflight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR), Burbank, CATo Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · 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 › Proper altitude, not selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT ELECTED NOT TO USE THE STORED INSTRUMENT FLIGHT PLAN, AND HE DEPARTED WITH A SPECIAL VFR CLEARANCE. THE FLIGHT WAS BEING FOLLOWED BY RADAR. AFTER REACHING VISUAL FLIGHT CONDITIONS, THE PILOT PROCEEDED TOWARD HIS INTENDED DESTINATION AND CLIMBED TO 8,500 FEET. MINIMUM SAFE ALTITUDE WARNING SERVICE WAS AVAILABLE, BUT NOT REQUESTED BY THE PILOT. A REVIEW OF RADAR DATA INDICATES THAT THE AIRPLANE'S TRACK REMAINED ALMOST CONSTANT AT 300 DEGREES WITH A 160-KNOT GROUND SPEED. THE LAST RADAR HIT ON THE AIRPLANE OCCURRED ABOUT 0.3 MILES FROM WHERE THE AIRPLANE CRUISED INTO 8,500 FOOT MSL TERRAIN WHILE STILL TRACKING ALONG A NORTHWESTERLY COURSE. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED IN DARK, NIGHTIME CONDITIONS.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to select a cruise altitude which would ensure adequate terrain clearance. Contributing factors related to the dark, nighttime condition and to the pilot's lack of attentiveness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA149
- Event ID
- 20001206X00915
- Case number
- LAX94FA149
- 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 1994-03-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fee80f7d450baaa65d84623f44f4abe0885ad5962b9e210a374207764486ddbc; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:49:56.269Z.