LAX98LA198 · Boeing Stearman A75N1
Boeing Stearman A75N1 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From CA · Sacramento, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA198
- 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
Boeing Stearman A75N1
- Aircraft type
- Boeing Stearman A75
- 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
- N48576
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CA · Sacramento, CATo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the runway was situated perpendicular to a road. He overflew the private dirt strip two times to check for landing direction and on-coming traffic. The pilot stated that he observed no on-coming traffic. He reported that as he reached the threshold 'things happened.' The aircraft touched down and became inverted facing the approach end of the runway. The pilot reported that he did not realize that the aircraft had struck a vehicle. Both the pilot and driver of the vehicle stated that they were unaware of each other's presence. No signage is available warning vehicles of low flying aircraft.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate visual lookout for on-coming ground traffic.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA198
- Event ID
- 20001211X10357
- Case number
- LAX98LA198
- 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: ee6a32d06d35a7393732eb9ac06acbf9135a791f8dd10f037e3ab2cd2dd1006c; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:49:05.612Z.