LAX92FA260 · Cessna 421B
Judith Rea Enterprises Cessna 421B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) to Tucson International Airport (TUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92FA260
- 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 421B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N628RJ
- Operator
- Judith Rea Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY)To Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, 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
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Lack of total instrument time
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not attained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE 3 OCCUPANTS ABOARD WERE: THE OWNER IN THE LEFT FRONT SEAT, HIS WIFE IN THE RIGHT FRONT SEAT, AND A MAN HIRED BY THE OWNER TO FLY THE AIRPLANE (SEAT LOCATION COULD NOT BE DETERMINED). PRIOR TO TAKEOFF A MAN TELEPHONED FSS FOR A WEATHER BRIEFING AND TO FILE AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN. HE TOLD FSS THE PILOT'S NAME WAS J. HAMLETT; A J. HAMLETT WAS NOT ABOARD (IT WAS FOUND LATER THAT HAMLETT WAS THE MAIDEN NAME OF THE WIFE OF THE MAN HIRED TO FLY THE AIRPLANE). TWO MINUTES AFTER TAKEOFF THE PILOT WAS TOLD TO CONTACT DEPARTURE; THE PILOT ACKNOWLEDGED. THIS WAS THE LAST RECORDED RADIO CONTACT. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A HILL OBSCURED BY GROUND FOG ABOUT 3 MI EAST OF THE AIRPORT. THE MAN HIRED TO FLY THE AIRPLANE DID NOT POSSESS AN AIRMAN CERTIFICATE; HIS CERTIFICATE WAS REVOKED 2 YEARS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE OWNER HAD OBTAINED HIS PRIVATE CERTIFICATE FOR AIRPLANE SINGLE-ENGINE LAND ABOUT 1 MONTH PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT, AND HAD NOT RECEIVED ANY MULTI-ENGINE INSTRUCTION.
Probable cause
THE OWNER/PILOT'S POOR JUDGEMENT IN ATTEMPTING AN OPERATION BEYOND HIS EXPERIENCE AND ABILITY, WHICH RESULTED IN HIS FAILURE TO ATTAIN AN ADEQUATE CLIMB PROFILE NECESSARY FOR TERRAIN CLEARANCE. ALSO, THE OWNER/PILOT LACKED INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE, AND WAS OVERCONFIDENT IN HIS ABILITY. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE HILLY TERRAIN AND WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92FA260
- Event ID
- 20001211X14889
- Case number
- LAX92FA260
- 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: cc469bbfca9d5466682e31be1bdf7798f4a70484780d0234781a64123c76c97f; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:05:52.538Z.