LAX92FA151 · Piper PA 28-236
N V Piper PA 28-236 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92FA151
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA 28-236
- 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
- N4335N
- Operator
- N V
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, CATo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, 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 · 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, delayed
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ABOUT 30 MIN BEFORE THE ACCIDENT, THE PLT RECEIVED AN IN-FLT WX BRIEF FROM EN ROUTE FLIGHT ADVISORY SERVICE (EFAS). THE PLT INDICATED TO THE EFAS THAT HE RECEIVED AN AIRMET REGARDING ICING CONDITIONS ALONG HIS ROUTE. THE PLT WAS THEN BRIEFED ON THUNDERSHOWERS, FREQUENT LIGHTNING CLOUD TO GND, AND PLT REPORTS OF MOD TURB AND LT MIXED ICING. THE PLT CONTINUED ON HIS FLT ROUTE AND 25 MIN AFTER HIS WX BRIEFING REPORTED AIRFRAME ICING CONDITIONS TO ATC. ATC ADVISED THE PLT OF MORE SEVERE WX AHEAD AND RECOMMENDED THE LT REVERSE COURSE. LESS THAN ONE MIN LATER, THE PLT REPORTED BEING STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. ATC AMENDED THE PLT'S CLEARANCE INSTRUCTING HIM TO REVERSE COURSE WITH A LEFT TURN HEADING 330 DEG. THE PLT READ BACK THE CLEARANCE. AFTERWARDS BOTH RADAR AND RADIO CONTACT WAS LOST. RADAR DATA REVEALED THE AIRPLANE ENTERED A LEFT TURN AND CLIMBED 200 FT. THE AIRPLANE THEN DESCENDED ABOUT 1,200 FT IN 35 SECONDS. THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE WAS NOT EQUIPPED WITH DE-ICING SYSTEMS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DELAYED INFLIGHT DECISION TO REVERSE COURSE TO AVOID FORECAST ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS ICING CONDITIONS AND LIGHTNING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92FA151
- Event ID
- 20001211X14310
- Case number
- LAX92FA151
- 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 1992-03-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d4b4325a8aad04e501ff0c3609a25defd0d8f863876f2f7f22e2a3329f25a434; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:18:19.531Z.