Scenic Air Tours Flight 23
Beech E18S · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Hilo International Airport (ITO) to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92MA184
- 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
- 9 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech E18S
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 18
- 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
- N342E
- Operator
- Scenic Air Tours
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hilo International Airport (ITO), Hilo, HITo Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HI
- 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
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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/navigation instrument(s), improper use of
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE AIR TOUR FLT THE PLT HAD RADIOED HIS INTENTIONS TO FSS TO OVERFLY AN AREA ABOUT 5 MI SW OF THE ISLAND OF MAUI. APRX 10 MIN LATER THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN ON THE ISLAND. IMC PREVAILED AT THE TIME AND LOCATION OF THE ACCIDENT. THE PLT DID NOT POSSESS THE MINIMUM HOURS STIPULATED IN THE COMPANY OPS MANUAL TO QUALIFY AS A CAPTAIN. HE FALSIFIED THE EMPLOYMENT APPLICATION & RESUME. THE COMPANY DID NOT PURSUE SUBSTANTIVE PREEMPLOYMENT BACKGROUND CHECKS, NOR WERE THEY REQUIRED BY THE FAA TO DO SO. REGULATIONS ARE NEEDED FOR AIR TOUR OPERATORS THAT WILL ENABLE FAA INSPECTORS TO REQUIRE, RATHER THAN MERELY ENCOURAGE, OPERATORS TO ADHERE TO PROCEDURES THAT OFFER THE SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS OF SFAR 50-2 AND FAA HANDBOOK 8400.10 BULLETIN 92-01.
Probable cause
THE CAPTAIN'S DECISION TO CONTINUE VISUAL FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS THAT OBSCURED RISING MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AND HIS FAILURE TO PROPERLY USE AVAILABLE NAVIGATIONAL INFORMATION TO REMAIN CLEAR OF THE ISLAND OF MAUI. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE FAILURE OF SCENIC AIR TOURS TO CONDUCT SUBSTANTIVE PILOT PREEMPLOYMENT BACKGROUND SCREENING, AND THE FAILURE OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION TO REQUIRE COMMERCIAL OPERATORS TO CONDUCT SUBSTANTIVE PILOT PREEMPLOYMENT SCREENING. (NTSB REPORT AAR-93/01)
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92MA184
- Event ID
- 20001211X14469
- Case number
- LAX92MA184
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1992-04-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ae4df3d557e331fdfda3c44c0696e9bf9acf0af6d2a3abc161ce357c6f6c6831; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:58:59.760Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N342E; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.