LAX93FA223 · Cessna 172N
Bermuda Air Services Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) to Lompoc Airport (LPC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA223
- 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
Cessna 172N
- 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
- N4783J
- Operator
- Bermuda Air Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP), Palm Springs, CATo Lompoc Airport (LPC)
- 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 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
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT DEPARTED PALM SPRINGS AIRPORT AT ABOUT 2335 HOURS ON A FLIGHT TO LOMPOC, CALIFORNIA. AN ELT SIGNAL WAS RECEIVED AT ABOUT 0930 HOURS THE FOLLOWING MORNING BY NEARBY AIR FORCE BASE PERSONNEL. A SEARCH WAS INITIATED, AND THE AIRPLANE WAS LOCATED AT ABOUT 1310 HOURS. IMPACT OCCURRED ON A HILLSIDE ABOUT 5 MILES SOUTHEAST OF THE AIRPORT. WITNESSES IN THE AREA REPORTED THAT THE MOUNTAIN TOPS NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE WERE OBSCURED WITH NEAR ZERO VISIBILITY. THE AIRPLANE HIT A HILL AT THE 1487 FOOT LEVEL, APPROXIMATELY 50 FEET FROM THE TOP OF THE HILL. THE PILOT BEGAN THE FLIGHT AFTER WORKING FROM 1500 HOURS TO 2330 HOURS. HE FILED A VFR FLIGHT PLAN, BUT DID NOT ACTIVATE IT. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED TAKING OFF ON A CLOSED RUNWAY AT PALM SPRINGS AIRPORT. THE PILOT HAD 2 HOURS OF ACTUAL INSTRUMENT TIME. THE NDB-B APPROACH PLATE FOR LOMPOC, CALIFORNIA WAS FOUND CLIPPED OPEN IN THE AIRCRAFT.
Probable cause
VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN PROPER ALTITUDE (OR CLEARANCE) FROM MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE LOW CEILING, FOG, DRIZZLE, OBSCURATION, AND MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA223
- Event ID
- 20001211X12411
- Case number
- LAX93FA223
- 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: 22fa6eb04ab7d8bbeb290cbb07da792d5d289dc6678b0b82d973e54a8fc3a5fa; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:33:00.074Z.