LAX92LA399 · Piper 601P
Piper 601P · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From an unrecorded airport to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA399
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper 601P
- Aircraft type
- Piper 601
- 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
- N711YM
- Operator
- Mitchell D. Slayman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Low pass, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND HIS PASSENGERS DEPARTED BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA, FOR AN EVENING FLIGHT TO SANTA BARBARA FOR DINNER. THE PILOT STATED THAT ON THE WAY HE DECIDED TO FLY OVER THREE OF HIS CITRUS RANCHES AND CHECK THEM FROM THE AIR. HE STATED THAT HE WAS TRAVELING AT '250 PLUS MPH' AT TOO LOW AN ALTITUDE AND CLIPPED A 12,000 VOLT PG&E POWER LINE. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE IMMEDIATELY PULLED UP TO 1,500 FEET AND CHECKED ALL SYSTEMS. HE THEN FLEW 30 MILES BACK TO BAKERSFIELD AND MADE AN UNEVENTFUL LANDING. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S SELECTION OF AN INADEQUATE ALTITUDE FOR AN INTENTIONAL LOW PASS. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE DUSK LIGHT CONDITIONS, AND THE PILOTS IMPROPER INFLIGHT PLANNING AND DECISION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA399
- Event ID
- 20001211X15732
- Case number
- LAX92LA399
- 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 1992-09-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8e717dc958739c7441f94d328b78e873de21f0688f5d10fe14eb835b360fdcc0; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:36:46.237Z.