LAX98FA153 · Beech G33
Beech G33 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From St George Regional Airport (SGU) to L67 · Rialto, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98FA153
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech G33
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N9471Q
- Operator
- Leland Robert Tarbox
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St George Regional Airport (SGU), ST. GEORGE, UTTo L67 · Rialto, 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
- En route · descent
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Wire, transmission; Tree(s)
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While receiving flight following, the commercial pilot was advised by the controller that he was cleared for 'unrestricted descent' and was given the current altimeter setting. After the transmission, the pilot acknowledged that there were clouds in his vicinity but began a descent toward the destination airport with the gear extended. After the airplane descended below the base of radar coverage, the controller advised that radar contact was lost; however, the pilot did not respond. Further attempts to contact the pilot were unsuccessful. The airplane collided with utility lines located on a ridge that crossed the pilot's route of flight. The airplane was equipped with navigational radios that were compatible with the published approach at the destination, and reported weather was above published minimums; however, the instrument rated pilot did not request a clearance nor were instrument charts found at the accident site. Visibility at the accident site was reported to be about 100 to 200 feet in mist with heavy precipitation and clouds at tree top level.
Probable cause
the pilot's intentional flight into known instrument weather conditions while operating VFR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98FA153
- Event ID
- 20001211X10118
- Case number
- LAX98FA153
- 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: 351ae97c89c7967a67bea69c9200685c2f03e4c897ed798f18321f256c6e6d56; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:36:13.356Z.