LAX92FA102 · Piper PA28-161
Art Scholl Aviation Piper PA28-161 · Accident: loss of control in flight
From PO6 · Bullhead City, AZ to L67 · Rialto, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92FA102
- 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
- 4 · 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
Piper PA28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N8432K
- Operator
- Art Scholl Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PO6 · Bullhead City, AZTo L67 · Rialto, 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Mountain Pass, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE TOOK OFF ON A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT UNDER VISUAL FLIGHT RULES TO RETURN TO ITS HOME AIRPORT. WHILE ENROUTE, THE PILOT OPENED HIS VFR FLIGHT PLAN VIA RADIO WITH FLIGHT SERVICE. THIS WAS THE LAST CONTACT WITH THE PILOT. A GROUND WITNESS WHO LIVES IN THE DESERT NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE STATED THAT HE HEARD A NOISE LIKE AN ENGINE CUTTING OUT FOLLOWED BY NOISE RESEMBLING A CAR DOOR SLAMMING. A SEARCH WAS INITIATED FOR THE AIRPLANE WHEN IT BECAME OVERDUE. THE AIRPLANE WRECKAGE AND THE FATALLY INJURED PILOT AND PASSENGERS WERE FOUND THE NEXT DAY. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND IN A RIGHT WING LOW, STALL SPIN ATTITUDE. ALL THE WRECKAGE WAS LOCATED IN THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY OF THE POINT OF GROUND IMPACT. THE PILOT OBTAINED HIS PRIVATE PILOT AIRMAN CERTIFICATE TEN MONTHS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT AND HAD LOGGED APPROXIMATELY 85 FLYING HOURS IN THE SAME TYPE AIRPLANE. THERE WERE NO MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES FOUND WITH THE ENGINE.
Probable cause
THE PILOTS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN THE AIRCRAFT'S AIRSPEED ABOVE THE STALL SPEED (VS) THAT RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT ENTRY INTO A STALL/SPIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92FA102
- Event ID
- 20001211X14001
- Case number
- LAX92FA102
- 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: 97f6100ca1fe5b572311e36d531bef72b209fa5bad3ef192cee7a5827c5457ee; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:23:57.480Z.