LAX95LA176 · Knapp PACKARD SPECIAL PACKARD SP
Knapp PACKARD SPECIAL PACKARD SP · Accident: hard landing
From Jean Airport (0L7) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA176
- 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
Knapp PACKARD SPECIAL PACKARD SP
- Aircraft type
- Knapp PACKARD SPECIAL
- 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
- N55851
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jean Airport (0L7), JEAN, NVTo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Flare, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES REPORTED SEEING THE AIRCRAFT OVER A DRY LAKE BED AT 20 FEET AGL. THE AIRCRAFT THEN DESCENDED ABRUPTLY AND IMPACTED IN NOSE-LOW ATTITUDE. AFTER IMPACT, THE AIRCRAFT NOSED OVER AND SKIDDED ABOUT 150 FEET BEFORE COMING TO REST IN AN INVERTED POSITION. A POSTCRASH INSPECTION OF THE AIRCRAFT REVEALED BOTH MAIN LANDING GEAR HAD BEEN SPREAD TO THE POINT OF FAILURE. THE PILOT TOLD ASSOCIATES THAT HE WAS HAVING DIFFICULTY IN JUDGING HIS HEIGHT ABOVE TOUCHDOWN. THE AREA OF THE ACCIDENT SITE IS FLAT WITHOUT TREES, FOLIAGE, OR GROUND OBJECTS. THE PILOT HAD ONLY RECENTLY RESUMED FLYING AFTER 17 YEARS OF INACTIVITY. FAA INSPECTORS REPORTED THAT THE PILOT'S FIRST FLIGHT SINCE 1978 WAS ON APRIL 3, 1995. BETWEEN APRIL 3 AND 7, HE RECEIVED INSTRUCTION AND A BIENNIAL FLIGHT REVIEW IN A CESSNA 205 EQUIPPED WITH TRICYCLE LANDING GEAR. DURING THAT PERIOD HE LOGGED A TOTAL OF 8.9 HOURS. HIS ESTIMATED TOTAL TIME IN THE ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT WAS 10 HOURS.
Probable cause
the pilot's misjudged altitude and landing flare timing which resulted in a hard landing and nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA176
- Event ID
- 20001207X03328
- Case number
- LAX95LA176
- 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: 494dc16d9bfc2b7ffab58123563d6279743e8f5dfe0b89e5b2c7ab4636658a21; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:47:47.970Z.