LAX95LA230 · Piper PA-34-200
Aero Club Piper PA-34-200 · Accident: overrun during landing
From Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to Catalina Airport (AVX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA230
- 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
- 0 · 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
Piper PA-34-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N56484
- Operator
- Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, CATo Catalina Airport (AVX), 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, service of aircraft/equipment, improper
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER TOUCHDOWN ON THE 3,240-FOOT-LONG RUNWAY, THE PILOT EXPERIENCED TOTAL BRAKE FAILURE AND WAS UNABLE TO STOP THE AIRCRAFT BEFORE OVERRUNNING THE RUNWAY. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH AN AIRPORT BOUNDARY FENCE. FAA AIRWORTHINESS INSPECTORS EXAMINED THE AIRCRAFT AND FOUND THAT THE HYDRAULIC RESERVOIR WAS 3/4 FULL AND THE BRAKE PADS LOOKED NEW. BOTH BRAKE PEDALS WERE SPONGY AND WOULD GO TO THE FLOOR. AIR WAS FOUND IN THE BRAKE LINES. THE BRAKES WERE REPLACED AND SERVICED ON JUNE 23, 1995. THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT WAS THE FIRST ONE SINCE THE WORK ON THE BRAKES WAS ACCOMPLISHED.
Probable cause
complete brake failure due to improper replacement and service of the brakes by company maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA230
- Event ID
- 20001207X03758
- Case number
- LAX95LA230
- 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: 13f328382eb84cda254316a70f793aa975776dd13ad637895ef97b1bcc9cce63; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:46:12.367Z.