LAX95LA001 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA001
- 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
- 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 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N170CT
- Operator
- David Miles
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, 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
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER DEPARTING THE AIRPORT ON RUNWAY 27, THE NONINSTRUMENTED RATED PILOT TURNED LEFT AFTER CLIMBING SEVERAL HUNDRED FEET. THE WITNESS ON THE GROUND LOST VISUAL CONTACT WITH THE AIRCRAFT POSITION LIGHTS AFTER THE LEFT TURN. OTHERS ON THE GROUND REPORTED THEY HEARD THE AIRCRAFT FLYING LOW OVERHEAD. ENGINE SOUNDS WERE REPORTED UNTIL THE TIME OF IMPACT. THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED APPROXIMATELY 1 1/2 MILES SOUTHWEST FROM THE AIRPORT. ONE WITNESS REPORTED THAT THE PILOT HAD OBTAINED A TELEPHONE WEATHER BRIEFING PRIOR TO DEPARTURE. A CHECK OF FAA FLIGHT SERVICE FACILITIES RECORDS DID NOT IDENTIFY A RECORD OF THE BRIEFING GIVEN TO THE PILOT. TWO WITNESSES NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE ESTIMATED THE BASE OF THE CLOUDS TO HAVE BEEN APPROXIMATELY 150 FEET AGL AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, WITH THE VISIBILITY LESS THAN 3 MILES DUE TO FOG.
Probable cause
the noninstrument-rated pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control due to spatial disorientation after encountering instrument meteorological conditions after the pilot decided to takeoff in adverse weather conditions. A factor in the accident was the dark nighttime lighting conditions and the pilot's lack of recent experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA001
- Event ID
- 20001206X02462
- Case number
- LAX95LA001
- 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 1994-10-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2ec78a697ab56b2b2974eff0a87e72c54ead7b7fe06224cbfea3f100a0ff152c; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:59:16.007Z.