Martin Aviation Israel Aircraft Industries 1124A accident
Israel Aircraft Industries 1124A · Accident: vortex turbulence encountered on approach
From Brackett Field (POC) to John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA073
- 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
- 5 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Israel Aircraft Industries 1124A
- Aircraft type
- Israel 1124
- 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
- N309CK
- Operator
- Martin Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brackett Field (POC), La Verne, CATo John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Vortex turbulence encountered
- 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 › Visual separation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Wake turbulence, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A BEECH LINER, BOEING 757 & ISRAEL WESTWIND (WW) WERE VECTORED FOR LANDINGS ON RWY 19R. THE 757 & WW WERE SEQUENCED FOR VISUAL APCHS BEHIND THE BEECH. BEFORE BEING CLEARED FOR VISUAL APCH, THE WW WAS CLOSING 3.5 MI FROM THE 757 ON A CONVERGING COURSE. THE 757 & WW CREWS WERE TOLD TO SLOW TO 150 KTS. THE 757 SLOWED BELOW 150 KTS & WAS HIGH ON FINAL APPROACH WITH A 5.6 DEG DESCENT. THE WW CONTINUED TO CONVERGE TO ABOUT 2.1 MI BEHIND THE 757 ON A 3 DEG APCH. ATC DID NOT SPECIFICALLY ADVISE, AND WAS NOT REQUIRED BY ATC HANDBOOK TO ADVISE, THE WW PILOTS THAT THEY WERE BEHIND A BOEING 757. CAPT DISCUSSED POSSIBLE WAKE TURBULENCE, FLEW ILS 1 DOT HIGH, NOTED CLOSENESS TO THE 757 & INDICATED THERE SHOULD BE NO PROBLEM. WHILE DESCENDING THRU APRX 1100 FT MSL, THE WW ENCOUNTERED WAKE TURBULENCE FROM THE 757, ROLLED INTO A STEEP DESCENT & CRASHED. THE CREW LACKED SPECIFIC WAKE TURBULENCE TRAINING. CHLORPHENIRAMINE (COMMON OVER-THE-COUNTER ANTI-HISTAMINE; NOT APPROVED FOR FLYING) DETECTED IN PILOT'S LUNG TISSUE (0.094 UG/ML). (SEE SPCL STUDY NTSB/SIR-94/01)
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE SEPARATION BEHIND THE BOEING 757 AND/OR REMAIN ABOVE ITS FLIGHT PATH DURING THE APPROACH, WHICH RESULTED IN AN ENCOUNTER WITH WAKE VORTICES FROM THE 757. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: AN INADEQUACY IN THE ATC PROCEDURE RELATED TO VISUAL APPROACHES AND VFR OPERATIONS BEHIND HEAVIER AIRPLANES, AND THE RESULTANT LACK OF INFORMATION TO THE WESTWIND PILOTS FOR THEM TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE FLIGHT PATH OF THEIR AIRPLANE WITH RESPECT TO THE BOEING 757'S FLIGHT PATH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA073
- Event ID
- 20001211X13867
- Case number
- LAX94FA073
- 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 1993-12-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fd9fb65d8b6f845728e389d1157350ac73a25005f6f1430a894b7b9f659fb7b8; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:50:47.711Z.