LAX97LA127 · Passadori Norman BREEZY
Passadori Norman BREEZY · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From 3O7 · Hollister, CA to Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA127
- 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
Passadori Norman BREEZY
- Aircraft type
- Passadori Norman BREEZY
- 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
- N16KB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3O7 · Hollister, CATo Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, 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 · turn to reverse direction
- 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 collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s); Stall/mush
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Maneuver to avoid obstructions, delayed
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The passenger, also an airline transport pilot, reported that the pilot had fueled the aircraft to capacity before takeoff. The passenger was in the rear seat of the 125-horsepower aircraft as they climbed from takeoff toward a ridge line separating them from their sightseeing destination. They were climbing slowly up a canyon at low altitude when the pilot acknowledged that the aircraft was not climbing fast enough to clear the ridge. The pilot attempted to reverse course, but during the turn the aircraft mushed and the right wing struck a tree. The aircraft then cartwheeled onto the ground. The passenger stated that there were no mechanical problems with the aircraft.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed decision to reverse course while climbing into rising terrain, and his failure to maintain an adequate airspeed margin which resulted in a stall/mush into trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA127
- Event ID
- 20001208X07579
- Case number
- LAX97LA127
- 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: cf53678e2270110352318695b8b564fac2117f31c774d456b548f1628e37076d; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:01:23.451Z.