LAX92LA322 · Beech A23A
Beech A23A · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From O45 · Vacaville, CA to Hooker Municipal Airport (O45)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA322
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech A23A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N7904L
- Operator
- Evert O. Wilkerson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O45 · Vacaville, CATo Hooker Municipal Airport (O45)
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Flight controls, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Spiral, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID HE WAS FLYING SOME FAMILY MEMBERS ON A TOUR OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAIN RANGE FOOT HILLS WHEN THE FLIGHT ENCOUNTERED SOME RAPIDLY BUILDING CUMULUS CLOUDS WHILE CRUISING AT AN ALTITUDE OF ABOUT 11,500 FEET MSL. THE PILOT SAID HE WAS NAVIGATING AROUND THE BUILD UPS ATTEMPTING TO MAINTAIN VFR CONDITIONS WHEN THE CLOUDS SURROUNDED THE AIRCRAFT. THE FLIGHT INADVERTENTLY ENTERED ONE OF THE LARGE CLOUDS AND THE PILOT SAID THE AIRCRAFT ENDED UP IN A HIGH SPEED SPIRAL DIVE AT AN AIRSPEED IN EXCESS OF ABOUT 190 KNOTS. THE PILOT FURTHER STATED THAT HE, WITH THE HELP OF HIS SON, 'STARTED PULLING BACK ON THE WHEEL' AND RECOVERED CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT. THE FLIGHT THEN RETURNED TO ITS HOME BASE AND LANDED. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT BY FAA INSPECTORS REVEALED THAT BOTH WINGS HAD MAJOR BUCKLES AT THE PRODUCTION JOINTS BETWEEN THE INBOARD AND OUTBOARD WING PANELS, WITH THE OUTBOARD PANELS EXHIBITING AN UPWARD PERMANENT SET. IN ADDITION, THE FUSELAGE IMMEDIATELY AFT OF THE FIREWALL AND FORWARD OF THE EMPENNAGE EXHIBITED AREAS OF SKIN BUCKLING.
Probable cause
1) THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT ENTRY INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, 2) HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT DUE TO SPATIAL DISORIENTATION, 3) THE INADVERTENT ENTRY INTO A SPIRAL DIVE AT AN EXCESSIVE AIRSPEED, AND, 4) THE PILOT'S IMPROPER USE OF THE FLIGHT CONTROLS WHICH IMPOSED EXCESSIVE LOADS ON THE AIRFRAME DURING THE ATTEMPTED RECOVERY FROM THE SPIRAL DIVE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA322
- Event ID
- 20001211X15214
- Case number
- LAX92LA322
- 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: 06f038c7a9fae155496e828ce2b032fd0798392e6af38ee198a649650d4759da; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:56:59.068Z.