LAX92LA095 · Cessna 150J
Aviation Professionals Cessna 150J · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) to McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA095
- 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
Cessna 150J
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N50810
- Operator
- Aviation Professionals
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP), Palm Springs, CATo McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, 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 · climb to 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 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
- Tree(s)
- 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(cfi) › Aircraft handling, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Proper altitude, not selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A DUAL CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR (CFI) FLEW INTO AN AREA OF RISING MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. THE CFI PLANNED TO INSTRUCT HIS STUDENT IN MOUNTAIN FLYING TECHNIQUES. THE AIRPLANE ENCOUNTERED AN UPDRAFT AND THEN A DOWNDRAFT. THE CFI LOWERED THE WING FLAPS TO THE 10 DEGREE POSITION IN A BELIEF THAT SUCH ACTION WOULD ENHANCE THE AIRPLANE'S RATE OF CLIMB. THE AIRPLANE'S CLIMB PERFORMANCE WAS NOT ENHANCED AND REMAINED INADEQUATE TO OUT CLIMB THE RISING TERRAIN. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A TREE AND THE SIDE OF A HILL.
Probable cause
THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR'S INADEQUATE IN-FLIGHT PLANNING TO ENTER A MOUNTAINOUS AREA AT A LOW ALTITUDE, AND HIS IMPROPER HANDLING OF THE AIRPLANE. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT RELATED TO THE INSTRUCTOR'S LOWERING OF THE WING FLAPS DURING A TIME WHEN A DOWNDRAFT WAS ENCOUNTERED AND THE TERRAIN WAS RISING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA095
- Event ID
- 20001211X14011
- Case number
- LAX92LA095
- 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: 7b69632af272a742fa1e258c98aa89ecd86395668fc10804b4f379e8b085ff70; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:25:18.603Z.