LAX95FA148 · Beech 35-C33
Beech 35-C33 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95FA148
- 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
- 3 · 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
Beech 35-C33
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N15LT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, CATo Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH), Mammoth Lakes, 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 encounter with weather
- 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, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT FLEW INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AFTER OBTAINING A WEATHER BRIEFING. WEATHER ADVISORIES FORECASTED MOUNTAIN OBSCURATION, MODERATE AND SEVERE TURBULENCE, LOW LEVEL WIND SHEAR, PRECIPITATION, ICING AND LOW FREEZING LEVELS, AND INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. WITNESSES ON THE GROUND REPORTED SNOW SHOWERS, MOUNTAIN OBSCURATION, HIGH WINDS, TURBULENCE, AND INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AT THE ACCIDENT SITE. THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH A MOUNTAIN SIDE AT THE 9,600-FOOT LEVEL. TOXICOLOGICAL TESTS OF THE PILOT'S LIVER WERE POSITIVE FOR MEPERIDINE(DEMEROL) AT A LEVEL OF 0.3 MCG/G. ACCORDING TO THE FAA'S CIVIL AEROMEDICAL INSTITUTE, MEPERIDINE IS A NARCOTIC ANALGESIC AND IS PROHIBITED WHILE FLYING AN AIRCRAFT.
Probable cause
the pilot's decisions to initially attempt and then continue flight into known forecast and observed adverse weather. Factors in the accident were: the pilot's inadequate preflight planning and his use of a drug.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95FA148
- Event ID
- 20001207X03136
- Case number
- LAX95FA148
- 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 1995-03-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7593274ed6149cd8dc6defb630c2feadad889409712866501a59d09a0145f452; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:50:37.450Z.