LAX93FA068 · Cessna 172M
Hickam Wheeler Aero Club Cessna 172M · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA068
- 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
- Unknown
Cessna 172M
- 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
- N1169U
- Operator
- Hickam Wheeler Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo not recorded
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Other government personnel › Dispatch procedures, not followed
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A DARK NIGHTTIME FLIGHT THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO FLY THE USAF AERO CLUB'S AIRPLANE AROUND THE PERIMETER OF THE ISLAND. AFTER COMPLETING ABOUT ONE HALF OF THE TRIP, THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH THE 50 DEGREE UP SLOPE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN, ABOUT 3.5 NM WEST OF COURSE. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED DURING THE PILOT'S FIRST EXPEREINCE FLYING AT NIGHT AS THE PILOT IN COMMAND. THE PILOT HAD 3.0 TOTAL HOURS OF NIGHT FLYING EXPERIENCE, AND HAD OBTAINED HIS PILOT'S CERTIFICATE 5 DAYS EARLIER. DURING THE PILOT'S PREFLIGHT PREPARATIONS, HE DID NOT REQUEST A COMPLETE WEATHER BRIEFING WHICH WOULD HAVE INDICATED THE LIKELIHOOD OF ENCOUNTERING RAIN SHOWERS WHILE FLYING OVER WINDWARD OAHU. THE USAF HAD A PROCEDURE WHICH, IF FOLLOWED, WOULD HAVE BARRED THE PILOT FROM PERFORMING THE FLIGHT. THE USAF CLEARING AUTHORITY PERSONNEL FAILED TO ADHERE TO ESTABLISHED WRITTEN DISPATCH PROCEDURES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT FLIGHT INTO A MOUNTAINOUS AREA WHERE HE LOST VISUAL REFERENCE TO ILLUMINATED GROUND FEATURES WHICH RESULTED IN HIS BECOMING DISORIENTED. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: 1) THE DARK SKY AND LOW CLOUD CONDITIONS; 2) THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO OBTAIN A COMPLETE WEATHER BRIEFING PRIOR TO TAKE OFF; 3) HIS IMPROPER WEATHER EVALUATION; 4) HIS INEXPERIENCE FLYING AT NIGHT; AND 5) THE USAF'S CLEARING AUTHORITY PERSONNEL'S FAILURE TO ADHERE TO ESTABLISHED WRITTEN PROCEDURES WHICH BARRED INEXPERIENCED PILOTS FROM BEING DISPATCHED WITH THE INTENT OF PERFORMING NIGHTTIME CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA068
- Event ID
- 20001211X16172
- Case number
- LAX93FA068
- 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 1992-12-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d998e0582c21508065b5c25d54f8c7340d72429cceec493fc102592e33704beb; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:45:53.426Z.