LAX93LA349 · Culver LFA
Culver LFA · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Ells Field Willits Municipal Airport (O28)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA349
- 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
Culver LFA
- Aircraft type
- Culver LFA
- 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
- N41729
- Operator
- William H. Lawson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Ells Field Willits Municipal Airport (O28), Willits, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 object
- 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
- Wire, static
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Airport personnel › Airport operations, improper
- Other person › Airport operations, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot commenced taking off from runway 34 and was unaware that a tow plane's banner had been suspended across the runway. Seconds before impact, the pilot observed the obstruction and attempted to avoid it by abruptly pulling up. The airplane's landing gear snagged the pickup wire and the airplane crashed into an adjacent open field. Airport management gave the banner company personnel permission to locate the banner on the runway and failed to close the runway. The banner company personnel failed to abide by its FAA waiver for banner operations which limited banner placement to at least '500 feet from any active runway, person ... and aircraft.'
Probable cause
the airport management's failure to provide notice of the banner operation and to close the runway. An additional cause was the banner operator's failure to ensure that the runway on which he placed his banner equipment was closed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA349
- Event ID
- 20001211X13426
- Case number
- LAX93LA349
- 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: b26bf318e8b2b131cc71df76941f5d212626efb10b9e9be21c9ad9cde403846d; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:09:02.274Z.