LAX93FA185 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From an unrecorded airport to Brackett Field (POC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA185
- 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
- 2 · 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
Piper PA-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6884P
- Operator
- James E. Brown · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Brackett Field (POC), La Verne, 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 · descent
- 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
- 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
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Information, improper
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Radar assistance to VFR aircraft, inadequate
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Safety advisory, not issued
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
NEARING COMPLETION OF HIS FLIGHT ACROSS THE U.S., AND ABOUT 33 MI FROM HIS DESTINATION, THE PILOT DESCENDED AND ENCOUNTERED AN OVERCAST LAYER. UNABLE TO SEE THE UNDERLYING RISING MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, AND UNCERTAIN OF HIS EXACT POSITION, THE PILOT REQUESTED ATC ASSISTANCE. HE ADVISED THE CONTROLLER THAT HE HAD A 'HOLE' AND WAS GOING THROUGH IT. THE AIRPLANE WAS RADAR IDENTIFIED. THE CONTROLLER APPROVED THE DESCENT AND ADVISED THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN VFR AT ALL TIMES. IN RESPONSE TO THE PILOT'S INQUIRY 'HOW LOW IS THE TERRAIN UNDER ME RIGHT NOW?', THE CONTROLLER STATED 'THE TERRAIN IS NO FACTOR FOR YOU SIR.' SHORTLY THEREAFTER THE PILOT STATED HE WAS '...LOSING VFR.' THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AT 5,550 FT MSL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT FLIGHT INTO IMC, THE RADAR CONTROLLER'S ISSUANCE OF INCORRECT TERRAIN INFORMATION, THE CONTROLLER'S FAILURE TO ISSUE A LOW ALTITUDE SAFETY ALERT, AND THE CONTROLLER'S FAILURE TO PROVIDE EMERGENCY SERVICES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA185
- Event ID
- 20001211X12156
- Case number
- LAX93FA185
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-04-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1f44ef7569330c8dec9ccdd23956ee5d593b45cff21e30b04140c47f3eb76b50; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:36:13.893Z.