LAX91FA108 · Cessna T210N
South Tahoe Const Cessna T210N · Accident: loss of control in flight during an uncontrolled descent
From Placerville Airport (PVF) to 043 · Yerington, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA108
- 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
- 1 · 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 T210N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N9448Y
- Operator
- South Tahoe Const
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Placerville Airport (PVF), Placerville, CATo 043 · Yerington, NV
- 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
- Uncontrolled descent
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT TOOK OFF ON A NIGHT FLIGHT TO RETURN TO HIS HOME UNDER VISUAL FLIGHT RULES WITHOUT OBTAINING A WEATHER BRIEFING OR FILING A FLIGHT PLAN. INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS EXISTED ALONG THE ROUTE AT THE TIME. WHEN THE AIRCRAFT FAILED TO ARRIVE AT ITS DESTINATION THE PILOT'S FAMILY REPORTED HIM OVERDUE. AN AERIAL SEARCH ALONG THE AIRCRAFT'S ASSUMED FLIGHT ROUTE WAS UNSUCCESSFUL UNTIL AN NTAP OF THE AIRCRAFT'S RADAR TRACK WAS OBTAINED FROM FAA'S AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTER. THE SEARCH AIRCRAFT, USING THE NTAP AS A GUIDE, FOUND THE AIRCRAFT'S WRECKAGE IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AT THE END OF THE RADAR PLOT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S ATTEMPT TO CONDUCT HIS VISUAL FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AND THE LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL BY BECOMING SPATIAL DISORIENTED. THE LOW CEILINGS AND THE DARK NIGHT THAT EXISTED IN THE AREA WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA108
- Event ID
- 20001212X16461
- Case number
- LAX91FA108
- 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 1991-02-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2ed2835a31101116174852129a125dd4d4d0ac38bb964a870df0fed815766e7c; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:57:59.886Z.