LAX94LA234 · Piper PA-28-151
Piper PA-28-151 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA234
- 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
Piper PA-28-151
- 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
- N32532
- Operator
- Craig M. Cordial · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Proper alignment, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT REPORTED THAT HE USED HIS FATHER'S AIRPLANE TO PRACTICE FLYING IN PREPARATION FOR THE FAA FLIGHT EXAM. HE LANDED ON A DIRT AIRSTRIP AND THEN ATTEMPTED TO TAKE OFF. ACCORDING TO THE STUDENT, AS THE AIRPLANE WAS LIFTING OFF AT AN AIRSPEED OF ABOUT 70 KNOTS, THE AIRPLANE DRIFTED LEFT AND COLLIDED WITH A TREE NEAR THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT HAD NOT RECEIVED DUAL FLIGHT INSTRUCTION IN 5 MONTHS, AND HAD NOT RECEIVED A LOGBOOK ENDORSEMENT AUTHORIZING SOLO FLYING IN 7 MONTHS.
Probable cause
THE STUDENT PILOT'S FAILURE TO PROPERLY ALIGN THE AIRPLANE'S FLIGHTPATH OVER THE RUNWAY DURING INITIAL CLIMB. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS THE STUDENT PILOT'S TOTAL LACK OF RECENT FLYING EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA234
- Event ID
- 20001206X01554
- Case number
- LAX94LA234
- 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 1994-06-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1c990eee449e48daf1e92f464799199ff52bad23e7ac3c0f5309727774125158; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:03:00.165Z.