LAX98LA228 · Pitts S1-S
Pitts S1-S · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Livermore Municipal Airport (LVK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA228
- 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
Pitts S1-S
- Aircraft type
- Pitts S1
- 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
- N71HR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Livermore Municipal Airport (LVK), Livermore, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 terrain/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
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing aerobatic maneuvers in a charted aerobatics practice box, part of which was over a gravel pile/construction site. The aircraft co-owner was on the ground watching the pilot's routine. He maintained radio communication with the pilot during the flight. The pilot informed the aircraft co-owner that he was finished and the co-owner started to head back to the airport. A ground witness saw the aircraft maneuver under a series of telephone lines and around construction equipment about 15 feet agl or less. He stated that the aircraft appeared to be attempting to pull up as it impacted the gravel pit. The witness further reported that the aircraft appeared to have power throughout the maneuvering and he did not notice any decrease in engine noise. The pilot suffered serious injuries and does not remember the accident flight. The aircraft co-owner reported that the pilot did not report any mechanical problems with the aircraft during the accident flight.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain adequate clearance with the terrain during aerobatic maneuvering.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA228
- Event ID
- 20001211X10629
- Case number
- LAX98LA228
- 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: 5859dcd74614a32071ea49570df5596d4cd1b78598f9aa9f13deb5076494ab78; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:24:27.394Z.