LAX94FA266 · Beech C23
Pacific Flight Services Beech C23 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From O45 · Vacaville, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA266
- 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
- 3 · 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
Beech C23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N2132W
- Operator
- Pacific Flight Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O45 · Vacaville, CATo not recorded
- 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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 in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE FLIGHT, THE PILOT MADE AN APPROACH TO LAND ON RUNWAY 28, A 3600' RUNWAY, WITH THE WIND FROM 120 DEGREES AT 4 KNOTS. A WITNESS REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE PASSED OVER THE LANDING THRESHOLD ABOUT 100' AGL. IT FIRST TOUCHED DOWN AT MIDFIELD, THEN IT PORPOISED TWO ADDITIONAL TIMES AND YAWED TO THE LEFT. THE WITNESS SAID THAT ENGINE POWER WAS APPLIED AND THE AIRPLANE GAINED 50' TO 60', THEN THE NOSE DROPPED AND THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED IN AN OPEN FIELD ADJACENT TO THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. DURING IMPACT, THE AIRPLANE'S FUEL TANKS RUPTURED AND A FIRE ERUPTED. THE AIRPLANE WAS DESTROYED BY FIRE. DURING THE PILOT'S TRAINING, HE HAD RECEIVED TWO FLIGHT TEST DISAPPROVALS BEFORE HE WAS ISSUED A PRIVATE PILOT CERTIFICATE ON 6/14/93. AT THAT TIME, HIS FLIGHT EXPERIENCE CONSISTED OF 41 HOURS SOLO AND 130 HOURS DUAL INSTRUCTIONAL TIME. ON 2/8/94, THE PILOT RECEIVED A 1-HOUR-LONG CHECKOUT IN THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE. THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT WAS THE PILOT'S FIRST FLIGHT IN THE AIRPLANE WITHOUT HIS FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR ON BOARD.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED DURING GO-AROUND FROM AN ABORTED LANDING, WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S MISJUDGMENT OF SPEED AND DISTANCE TO THE RUNWAY WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH, FAILURE TO ATTAIN THE PROPER TOUCHDOWN POINT DURING THE LANDING, INADVERTENT PORPOISE, AND IMPROPER RECOVERY FROM A BOUNCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA266
- Event ID
- 20001206X01552
- Case number
- LAX94FA266
- 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 1994-06-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 922fe65216f8e700574165de5fc9f9e43ad8360a1eb37df56d53ce5b2a73f981; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:06:12.934Z.