LAX98LA279 · Boeing Stearman A75N1
Twin-D Enterprises Boeing Stearman A75N1 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Big Bear City Airport (L35) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA279
- 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
- N56856
- Operator
- Twin-D Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Big Bear City Airport (L35), BIG BEAR, 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 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
- Pole
- 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
- Aircraft performance, climb capability › Exceeded
- Weather condition › Downdraft
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was part of a flight of two aircraft conducting for-hire sightseeing flights from the airport. After the aircraft turned on to the crosswind leg, downdrafts were encountered by both aircraft. The accident aircraft made a turn to the left and the trailing aircraft turned to the right. The accident aircraft recovered close to the ground, collided with a telephone pole, and came to rest inverted. The aircraft was destroyed by a postimpact fire. The pilot of the aircraft stated that there were no mechanical anomalies experienced with the aircraft. The aircraft was at full power, but not gaining altitude. A witness to the accident reported that approximately 5 miles southeast of the airport were rain showers. The aircraft was examined and control continuity was established. No mechanical anomalies were noted. This was the sixth flight of the day, with no discrepancies noted with the previous flights. At the time of the accident the weather was deteriorating. Meteorological data showed the presence of instability and convective activity conducive to up and downdrafts near the accident site.
Probable cause
The pilot's encounter with an unfavorable wind condition, which caused the aircraft to descend at a rate that exceeded the aircraft's climb capability.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA279
- Event ID
- 20001211X10908
- Case number
- LAX98LA279
- 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: de6db8e4c28e39bc70bd9a6e3c849c3caa357522d63f7f4efa27b30c4f538b21; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:42:27.462Z.