LAX95FA068 · Grumman AA-5A
Grumman AA-5A · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP) to 1Q7 · Tulare, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95FA068
- 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
Grumman AA-5A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman AA-5
- 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
- N26443
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP)To 1Q7 · Tulare, 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACCIDENT SITE IS ON THE SOUTH FACE OF A MOUNTAIN AT 3,000 FEET MSL. THE MOUNTAIN IS PART OF THE COASTAL MOUNTAIN RANGE WHICH SEPARATES SAN LUIS OBISPO FROM THE GREATER SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, WHERE THE PILOT'S DESTINATION IS LOCATED. CEILINGS IN THE AREA WERE MEASURED BETWEEN 2,600 AND 2,300 FEET. THE NON INSTRUMENT-RATED PILOT RECEIVED TWO WEATHER BRIEFINGS PRIOR TO DEPARTURE AND WAS ADVISED THAT MARGINAL VFR CONDITIONS EXISTED WITH SAN LUIS OBISPO REPORTING A MEASURED CEILING OF 3,500 BROKEN AND VISIBILITY 10 MILES. THE BRIEFER ADDED AN OBSERVATION FROM AN AIRPORT ABOUT 20 MILES SOUTH OF SAN LUIS OBISPO, WHICH HAD CEILINGS OF 3,000 FEET OVERCAST. THE BRIEFER THEN PROVIDED THE PILOT WITH THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY OBSERVATIONS INDICATING CLEAR CONDITIONS BELOW 12,000 FEET. THE PILOT RESPONDED, 'THAT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR US'. THE PILOT STATED HIS INTENDED CRUISE ALTITUDE AS, 'ABOUT FORTY FIVE HUNDRED FEET ONCE WE GET PAST THESE CLOUDS'. THE BURNED AND FRAGMENTED WRECKAGE WAS SPREAD OVER 260 FEET ON A 10-DEGREE DESCENDING PATH ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE. NO MECHANICAL FAILURES WERE IDENTIFIED IN THE WRECKAGE EXAMINATION.
Probable cause
the pilot's intentional flight into an area of known marginal weather conditions during a night cross-country flight and the flight's subsequent inadvertent entry into instrument meteorological conditions at an altitude insufficient to remain clear of the surrounding terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95FA068
- Event ID
- 20001206X02738
- Case number
- LAX95FA068
- 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 1994-12-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: adca37c1018ea29d73104910d81b6e4103da7c7d016b9312b1ca81900af06214; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:54:03.578Z.