LAX91FA247 · Cessna C-172
Cessna C-172 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Meadows Field (BFL) to Gillespie Field (SEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA247
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna C-172
- Aircraft type
- Cessna C-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
- N5814A
- Operator
- Turner, Robert W. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, CATo Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, 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 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 › Radar assistance to VFR aircraft, disregarded
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A CESSNA 172 COLLIDED WITH MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN DURING NIGHT VFR FLT. THE PLT WAS NON-INSTRUMENT RATED AND WAS VFR ON TOP OF A 1,500 FT CEILING ABOVE HIS DEST. THE PLT WAS IN RADIO AND RADAR CONTACT WITH THE LOCAL TRACON. THE PLT DID NOT REQUEST ASSISTANCE FROM THE TRACON TO AVOID THE WX CONDITIONS. INSTEAD THE PLT ELECTED TO FIND A HOLE IN THE OVERCAST. THE TRACON ISSUED A WARNING TO THE PLT OF HIGH TERRAIN. THE PLT ELECTED TO CONTINUE FLIGHT BELOW THE MINIMUM VECTORING ALTITUDE UNDER HIS OWN NAVIGATION AND REPORTED THAT HE HAD GND CONTACT. THE TRACON THEN INFORMED THE PLT OF HIS LOCATION RELATIVE TO THE APRT AND INFORMED HIM HE WAS HEADING TOWARDS THE HIGH TERRAIN. HIS ALT READOUT WAS ABOUT 2,600 FT MSL. THE PLT THEN REQUESTED A VECTOR TO THE APRT. THE TRACON INFORMED THE PLT OF A WESTBOUND HEADING TO THE APRT. THE PLT TURNED TO THE HEADING AND THEN REVERSE COURSE AND HEADED EAST TOWARDS EVEN HIGHER TERRAIN. RADAR AND RADIO CONTACT WAS LOST. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH THE EAST SLOPE OF A 1,868 FT RIDGE AT 1,500 LVL ON A SOUTHERLY HEADING.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO REQUEST RADAR ASSISTANCE TO AVOID LOW CEILINGS IN HIGH TERRAIN AND THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE VISUAL OUTLOOK WHICH ULTIMATELY RESULTED IN AN INFLIGHT COLLISION WITH HIGH TERRAIN. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE WEATHER CONDITIONS SPECIFICALLY LOW CLOUDS AND THE LIGHT CONDITIONS OF THE DARK NIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA247
- Event ID
- 20001212X17284
- Case number
- LAX91FA247
- 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 1991-06-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4c7e1d6fad98214d80e1c47914a9bcf39f2e184a3c09d125668c3c6582e2f342; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:47:04.655Z.