LAX98LA317 · Piper PA-28-150
Piper PA-28-150 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR) to Southern California Logistics Airport (VCV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA317
- 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-28-150
- 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
- N5962W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR), Hawthorne, CATo Southern California Logistics Airport (VCV)
- 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
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Locked
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Victorville, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the Automated Weather Observation Service (AWOS) was reporting calm winds at the time of the accident. He entered a left downwind for runway 21 and was cleared to land. He reported that as he started the turn from base to final he felt a little crosswind from the west and compensated with rudder and aileron. The pilot stated that he seemed to be set up for a 'perfect straight landing,' but as he touched down, he felt sudden bounce and pull to the left, so he applied right rudder. The aircraft became airborne again and veered to the left, hitting the 3K runway sign marker with the right wing. The mechanic who repaired the aircraft following the accident reported that the left main gear brake had locked up. He stated that he examined the brake manifold and discovered that the washers were oversized, and were actually the washers for the fuel cell. The mechanic opined that the oversized washers could have caused the left brake to remain locked up even though the brakes were not being applied.
Probable cause
The installation of incorrect washers for the brake manifold by maintenance personnel, which resulted in the left brake locking up, which made it impossible for the pilot to maintain directional control of the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA317
- Event ID
- 20001211X10145
- Case number
- LAX98LA317
- 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: 390486b398b15bbd5209c9f3068c944e9c10542b20765cdc9fcf9bc7fcd1cfab; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:43:51.991Z.