LAX95LA087 · Stevens S-8
Stevens S-8 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From E14 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA087
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Stevens S-8
- Aircraft type
- Stevens S-8
- 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
- N66191
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From E14To 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
- 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 terrain/water
- 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, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACQUAINTANCES OF THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE HAD INTENDED TO MAKE A 1.0 TO 1.5 HOUR-LONG LOCAL FLIGHT, DURING WHICH HE PLANNED TO PERFORM TOUCH-AND-GO LANDINGS AND PRACTICE UNSPECIFIED MANEUVERS IN THE LOCAL AREA. THE PILOT PURCHASED 10 GALS OF FUEL, PUT ON A PARACHUTE, AND TOOK OFF IN THE HOMEBUILT WHICH HE HAD PURCHASED A FEW WEEKS EARLIER. THERE WERE NO WITNESSES TO THE ACCIDENT. THE AIRPLANE WAS FOUND ABOUT 6 MI FROM THE UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT, PARTIALLY CONSUMED BY A POSTIMPACT FIRE. AN ON-SCENE EXAMINATION REVEALED THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH THE ROUGH DESERT TERRAIN WHILE IN A STEEP NOSE-DOWN PITCH ATTITUDE. TERRAIN AND VEGETATION SURROUNDING THE IMPACT SITE WAS NOT SCARRED, AND THE ENGINE WAS FOUND IN AN ESTIMATED 70-DEG NOSE-DOWN PITCH ATTITUDE. THE PROPELLER WAS FOUND ATTACHED TO THE ENGINE, AND WAS ABOUT 18 INCHES BELOW GROUND LEVEL. ALL OF THE AIRPLANE'S FLIGHT CONTROL SURFACES WERE ACCOUNTED FOR IN THE VICINITY OF THE MAIN IMPACT CRATER, AND NONE EXHIBITED EVIDENCE OF PREIMPACT FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE TO AVOID A COLLISION WITH THE GROUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA087
- Event ID
- 20001207X02888
- Case number
- LAX95LA087
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dc661b53d4d92d6ab3698a50dfee39c77f5e65637cf8cc6ef8099275099a1f8e; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:52:59.986Z.