LAX91FA117 · Beech 58P
Beech 58P · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA117
- 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
Beech 58P
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N6666Q
- Operator
- John G. Krisch · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, CATo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, 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
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › Hazardous weather advisory, disregarded
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A BEECH 58P DESCENDED AND COLLIDED WITH MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN WHILE IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. THE PILOT WAS ISSUED A 20 MINUTE WEATHER BRIEFING FROM A FLIGHT SERVICE STATION. THE WEATHER BRIEFING FORECASTED IFR CEILINGS ALONG ENTIRE FLIGHT, OCCASIONAL MODERATE TURBULENCE OVER THE ENTIRE ROUTE, A SIGMET FOR SEVERE TURBULENCE AND LOW LEVEL WIND SHEAR, STRONG UP AND DOWN DRAFTS IN THE VICINITY OF MOUNTAINS AND PASSES, AND OCCASIONAL MODERATE MIXED ICING FROM THE FREEZING LEVEL TO FLIGHT LEVEL 200 OVER ENTIRE ROUTE OF FLIGHT. AFTER RECEIVING THE BRIEFING, THE PILOT DECIDED TO INITIATE THE FLIGHT AND FILED AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED ON RADAR CLIMBING THROUGH 11,400 FEET MSL AT A POSITION THAT OVERLIES AN 8,000 FOOT MSL MOUNTAIN RANGE. RADIO AND RADAR CONTACT WAS THEN LOST. NO MECHANICAL PROBLEMS WERE FOUND.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL DUE TO HIS DISREGARD FOR AND POOR EVALUATION OF SIGNIFICANT WEATHER ADVISORIES FORECASTING ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS ALONG THE ROUTE OF FLIGHT AND THE PILOT'S DECISION TO INITIATE THE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA117
- Event ID
- 20001212X16612
- Case number
- LAX91FA117
- 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 1991-03-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1fef3df5f78ecffa966f94feed07894772e5bbdd503b0110f7a2578b807c9a32; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:56:42.474Z.