LAX95FA020 · Cessna T337H
Cessna T337H · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN) to Benton Field (O85)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95FA020
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna T337H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N1497S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN), Auburn, CATo Benton Field (O85), Redding, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- 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 › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH A TREE IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN DURING NIGHT INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. THE PILOT DIVERTED FROM HIS PLANNED DESTINATION AFTER ENCOUNTERING ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS. THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT WAS FLYING LOW IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN WHEN HE ENCOUNTERED RAIN, LOW CLOUDS, AND GUSTING WIND CONDITIONS. A HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICER, WHO IS ALSO A LICENSED PILOT, REPORTED THE WEATHER IN THE AREA AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT AS IMC. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE FOUND OF MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WITH THE AIRPLANE.
Probable cause
The improper in-flight decision of the pilot to fly in dark night time conditions in mountainous terrain during adverse weather conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95FA020
- Event ID
- 20001206X02459
- Case number
- LAX95FA020
- 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 1994-10-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b7a004eb29a4e56c376d9998934997d4320d7920cf2f080f8af1e92df68763b3; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:57:39.550Z.