LAX92LA079 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Gillespie Field (SEE) to San Carlos Apache Airport (P13)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA079
- 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
Piper PA-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8RJ
- Operator
- Rattigan, Ronald · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, CATo San Carlos Apache Airport (P13), Globe, AZ
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE ARRIVED OVER THE DESTINATION AIRPORT ON TOP OF AN OVERCAST. THE PILOT FOUND A BREAK IN THE OVERCAST AND DESCENDED UNDER VISUAL FLIGHT RULES. THE PILOT WAS ENCOUNTERING MARGINAL VFR CONDITIONS WHILE UNDER THE OVERCAST. THE PILOT INDICATED RELIABLE RADIO NAVIGATION SIGNALS WERE LOST AND HE ELECTED TO LAND AT A DIRT AIRSTRIP, RATHER THAN TO CONTINUE FLIGHT IN MARGINAL VFR WEATHER CONDITIONS. THE AIRSTRIP'S DIRT RUNWAY WAS MUDDY AND THE AIRPLANE EXITED THE RUNWAY ON THE LEFT SIDE WHERE IT COLLIDED WITH A BERM ON THE RUNWAY SHOULDER COLLAPSING THE NOSE GEAR. THE PILOT INDICATED THAT THERE WERE NO MECHANICAL FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS WITH THE AIRPLANE BEFORE THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL DURING THE LANDING ROLL. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE SOFT MUDDY RUNWAY CONDITIONS AT THE DIRT AIRSTRIP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA079
- Event ID
- 20001211X14003
- Case number
- LAX92LA079
- 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: b3855c38c90f0982ed9ecbb41aeb53938a2890f12d859a7093c9f77b9fbcd09b; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:27:03.778Z.