LAX93FA096 · Cessna 172P
Hiser Helicopters Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL) to French Valley Airport (F70)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA096
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N53908
- Operator
- Hiser Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL), Riverside, CATo French Valley Airport (F70), RANCHO, CA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS ONE OF A GROUP FERRYING 6 AIRPLANES. A MISSION COMMANDER WAS NOT DESIGNATED; EACH PILOT WOULD 'DO THEIR OWN THING.' ANOTHER PILOT SAID THE CESSNA 172 PILOTS LAUNCHED WITHOUT A WEATHER BRIEFING. THE ACCIDENT PILOT DEPARTED AT ABOUT 0920. APPROXIMATELY 10 MIN LATER, A WITNESS LOCATED ABOUT 300 YDS FROM THE ACCIDENT SITE HEARD THE AIRPLANE CIRCLING A MOUNTAIN '...WAY TOO LOW.' BEFORE IMPACT. THE WITNESS STATED HE COULDN'T SEE BECAUSE IT WAS TOO FOGGY. WITNESSES REPORTED THE VISIBILITY TO BE ABOUT 50 FT IN DENSE FOG. THE OTHER PILOTS SAID THEY ENCOUNTERED LOW CLOUDS AND FOG WHICH CONTINUED UNTIL ABOUT 3 MI NORTH OF THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. TWO OF THE PILOTS SAID THEY TRIED TO DESCEND BELOW THE CLOUDS TO GET INTO THE DESTINATION AIRPORT BUT TURNED BACK.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DECISION TO INITIATE VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO OBTAIN A WEATHER BRIEFING, THE ADVERSE WEATHER, AND THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA096
- Event ID
- 20001211X11708
- Case number
- LAX93FA096
- 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: ffeb720dde5021406e27cebca03a176f79be3489ecd4534050a3ad84b04e89e0; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:43:27.859Z.