LAX93FA360 · Beech 95-A55
Beech 95-A55 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK) to Brackett Field (POC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA360
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech 95-A55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N9778Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, CATo Brackett Field (POC), BRACKET FIELD, 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
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT DEPARTED OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, FOR A NIGHT VFR FLIGHT TO THE LOS ANGELES AREA. HE REQUESTED VFR FLIGHT FOLLOWING ALONG HIS ROUTE OF FLIGHT. SHORTLY AFTER BEING HANDED OFF TO LOS ANGELES ATC, HE WAS ASKED HIS NEXT POINT OF NAVIGATION. THE PILOT SAID HE WAS GOING DIRECT GORMAN, DIRECT BRACKETT FIELD. THE PILOT WAS INSTRUCTED TO CONTACT LA ATC, SECTOR 13. THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO CONTACT THAT SECTOR, AND WAS TOLD BY THE PREVIOUS SECTOR TO REATTEMPT CONTACT IN 15 MILES. NO FURTHER RADIO COMMUNICATION WAS RECEIVED BY THE PILOT. THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 16 MILES WEST OF THE GORMAN VOR; THE VOR TO WHICH THE PILOT INDICATED HE WAS GOING TO FLY 'DIRECT'. ACCORDING TO WEATHER INFORMATION AND SUN/MOON TABLES, IT WAS AN EXTREMELY DARK NIGHT WITH VERY LITTLE MOON ILLUMINATION. THE MAXIMUM ELEVATION FIGURE FOR THIS PARTICULAR QUADRANGLE ON THE VFR SECTIONAL IS 9,200 FEET MEAN SEA LEVEL. THE ELEVATION OF THE CRASH SITE WAS APPROXIMATELY 8,750 FEET MSL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT IN COMMAND DID NOT MAINTAIN ADEQUATE CLEARANCE WITH THE TERRAIN. FACTORS IN THIS ACCIDENT WERE: THE DARK NIGHT, AND THE POOR IN FLIGHT PLANNING AND DECISION MAKING BY THE PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA360
- Event ID
- 20001211X13416
- Case number
- LAX93FA360
- 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 1993-09-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 343b921c0e7b0358c8bbb084774bde43508648e93e78f3ab82f94c80a5766c6e; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:22:57.403Z.