LAX98LA190 · Fones Z-MAX 1300
Fones Z-MAX 1300 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From Buckeye Municipal Airport (BXK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA190
- 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
Fones Z-MAX 1300
- Aircraft type
- Fones Z-MAX 1300
- 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
- N140FF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buckeye Municipal Airport (BXK), Buckeye, AZTo 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
- Landing
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the engine temperature began to increase and he decided to make a precautionary landing in an open field. He later stated that he landed in that area so he could buy a drink from the local grocery store. During the landing rollout, the aircraft impacted an area of high brush. The aircraft nosed over and broke in half aft of the cockpit. The pilot holds a student pilot certificate/third-class medical dated December 3, 1993. The pilot reported that he has approximately 67 hours of total flight time, including 37 hours in the accident aircraft. An FAA inspector examined the pilot's logbook and reported that the logbook showed approximately 30 hours of flight instruction dating back to 1993, as well as a tail wheel aircraft endorsement made by a certified flight instructor approximately 5-6 months prior to the accident. The aircraft has no airworthiness certificate, nor is there an application for one. The FAA inspector examined the aircraft and reported that it was constructed of plywood and fabric. The inspector found no evidence of engine overheating. The pilot stated that he did not have the drawing plans or logbooks for the aircraft.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft during the landing approach, and his poor in-flight planning in making an off-airport landing at an unsuitable landing area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA190
- Event ID
- 20001211X10350
- Case number
- LAX98LA190
- 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: 6b116155a4553f15469f333dbc1ba1b26042c915ffff3aa92a5f65f104a3f97c; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:41:40.918Z.