LAX94LA304 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA304
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N2500Y
- Operator
- Fredrick Voorhis
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NVTo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, 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 · 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Airport, not selected
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight and within 5 minutes, the pilot's number one radio quit, followed by the number two radio, and then the transponder. He became uncertain about his position and was concerned about decreasing visibility and impending darkness. He began a descent and followed a freeway. He stated that all the right side panel instruments then 'went out,' followed 2 minutes later by all of the left side panel instruments. He flew through a valley, saw the words 'San Bernardino' on a building, and concluded that he was east of track. He saw an airport for a precautionary landing, but thought that the runway was not long enough. He then saw a dirt road near the freeway and choose it instead. He was concerned about stalling, so he added 10 knots to his approach speed. The pilot braked hard to avoid going into an intersection, struck a wooden pole, and veered off the road into a ditch. The operator reported that the alternator had 'gone off-line.'
Probable cause
was the failure of the pilot to follow checklist and emergency procedures, which resulted in an improper decision to land on a dirt road within two miles of an airport.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA304
- Event ID
- 20001206X01796
- Case number
- LAX94LA304
- 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 1994-07-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f2a9091b29b9fefd455b54586b90d9f18c2875947c532531f46e96c7e186439a; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:52:18.353Z.