LAX97FA075 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 and Cessna 150M · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA075
- 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
- 2 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Piper PA-28-140
- 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
- N943R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), CATo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 150M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N63137
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L39 · Ramona, CATo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
When the low wing Piper PA-28, N943R, contacted the tower 5 miles east of the airport, the tower controller pointed out the Cessna 150, N63137, at 11 o'clock, 2 miles, and instructed the pilot to fly southbound and report that aircraft in sight. The transmission was not acknowledged, and the Piper pilot flew southwest bound and never reported the Cessna in sight. When both aircraft were on a 3-mile final approach to parallel runways, the controller, with both aircraft in sight, issued a traffic advisory to the Cessna regarding the Piper behind them, but did not issue a traffic advisory to the Piper regarding the Cessna in front of them. The two aircraft collided in flight, 1.5 miles east of the airport. The Piper, with a student pilot in the left seat and a flight instructor in the right seat, overtook the high wing aircraft from above, behind and to the right. The lower fuselage of the Piper contacted the upper fuselage and propeller of the high wing aircraft. The Cessna's propeller severed the primary control cables of the Piper and it descended out of control and crashed. The Cessna made a off-airport forced landing and collided with a berm during the ground roll.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot-in-command of the Piper PA-28, N943R, to maintain an adequate visual lookout to see and avoid the Cessna 150, N63137. A factor in the accident was the failure of the air traffic controller to issue a traffic advisory to the pilot concerning the Cessna 150.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA075
- Event ID
- 20001208X07187
- Case number
- LAX97FA075
- 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: 1d8279f868a25ab6ee982c7d9e4c20bbc013a1503a2238c656b5cde6fc2e1a20; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:04:45.186Z.