LAX97LA188 · Piper PA-28R-201
Piper PA-28R-201 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Bakersfield International Airport (L45) to L15 · NV
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA188
- 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-28R-201
- 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
- N38718
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bakersfield International Airport (L45), Bakersfield, CATo L15 · NV
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Aircraft performance, crosswind capability › Exceeded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot initiated an approach to runway 18 with the right wing low and landed on the right main gear. After the right tire touched down, the right wing came up and the aircraft veered to the left. The aircraft ran off the left side of the runway and struck a row of very large rocks that were alongside the runway. The main landing gear collapsed and the aircraft slid into a 8-foot rocky drop-off. The pilot stated that he did not have enough airspeed to attempt a go-around so he opted to allow the aircraft to run off the runway. The tower advised the pilot that surface winds were from 230 degrees at 15 knots, gusting to 25. The pilot operating handbook for the aircraft states the maximum demonstrated crosswind component is 17 knots. Considering that limitation, the maximum allowable component for a 50-degree crosswind was computed to be 19.15 knots.
Probable cause
the pilot's attempt to land the aircraft under crosswind conditions that exceeded the performance capability of the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA188
- Event ID
- 20001208X07957
- Case number
- LAX97LA188
- 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: e0526cd58e246de34a9656abe1661f4dfdc009b54ce1cb7cb0c1c747a4672bd2; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:41:34.063Z.