LAX92FA242 · Cessna 172I
Cessna 172I · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From L66 · Corona, CA to Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92FA242
- 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
- 3 · 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
Cessna 172I
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N225EB
- Operator
- Tomich, Luis A. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L66 · Corona, CATo Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL), Fullerton, 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
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A CESSNA 172I COLLIDED WITH MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN DURING INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. A FIRE WAS REPORTED IN THE ACCIDENT AREA. FIREMAN WERE UNABLE TO PINPOINT THE LOCATION OF THE FIRE DUE TO LOW CEILINGS AND FOG OBSCURING THE MOUNTAIN TOPS. A HELICOPTER WAS DISPATCHED TO HELP LOCATE THE FIRE AND HAD TO TURN AROUND DUE TO THE WEATHER CONDITIONS. THE FIRE WAS EVENTUALLY EXTINGUISHED DURING NIGHT FALL. THE AIRPLANE ACCIDENT WAS NOT DISCOVERED AS THE CAUSE OF THE FIRE UNTIL DAYLIGHT THE FOLLOWING DAY. TWO WEATHER OBSERVATION FACILITIES LOCATED AT TWO LOCAL AIRPORTS WHICH BRACKETED WERE REPORTING A 2,000 FT OVERCAST CEILING. ONE WAS LOCATED FIVE MILES AWAY AT AN ELEVATION OF 650 FT MSL. ANOTHER WAS LOCATED 14 MILES AWAY AT AN ELEVATION 96 FT MSL. THE ELEVATION OF THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS ABOUT 1,485 FT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POOR WEATHER EVALUATION AND INFLIGHT DECISION TO CONTINUE FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92FA242
- Event ID
- 20001211X14886
- Case number
- LAX92FA242
- 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 1992-06-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 98a5fcb9579d0dbdf945eb3a4bc7b11dd63483f0bd8ebbceb2a64b97909c82d5; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:07:47.122Z.