LAX95FA103 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From CA to Columbia Airport (O22)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95FA103
- 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
Piper PA-28-180
- 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
- CFCNW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CATo Columbia Airport (O22), Columbia, 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE DAY PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT, THE PILOT LANDED THE AIRCRAFT ON A HIGHWAY DUE TO A LOW FUEL STATE. THE MORNING OF THE ACCIDENT, HE BOUGHT 10 GALLONS OF FUEL AND WAS GOING TO FLY THE AIRCRAFT TO A NEARBY AIRPORT. ACCORDING TO HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICERS ON THE SITE, WHEN THE PILOT TOOK OFF FROM THE HIGHWAY, THE PREVAILING VISIBILITY OF LESS THAN 1,500 FEET. THE PILOT CIRCLED THE ACCIDENT AREA TWO TIMES BEFORE HE CRASHED ABOUT 0.3 MILE WEST OF THE DEPARTURE AREA. GROUND WITNESSES REPORTED THE ENGINE SOUND ABRUPTLY CUT-OUT FOR ABOUT TWO SECONDS AND THEN WENT TO A HIGH- POWER ENGINE SOUND. THE AIRPLANE CRASHED ABOUT 100 FEET NORTH OF SOME TELEPHONE WIRES. THE POSTACCIDENT WRECKAGE EXAMINATION DISCLOSED EVIDENCE OF HIGH POWER AT IMPACT AND NO EVIDENCE OF ANY PREEXISTING MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES.
Probable cause
the pilot's intentional flight into IMC conditions and subsequent in-flight loss of control due to spatial disorientation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95FA103
- Event ID
- 20001207X02975
- Case number
- LAX95FA103
- 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: d8d46ebb4d9cea670d62687f6c4cfd8649197111d0032aea4ffb4dab41dc0c8c; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:52:06.332Z.