LAX91FA280 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-36A
Mitsubishi MU-2B-36A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA280
- 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
- 4 · 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
Mitsubishi MU-2B-36A
- Aircraft type
- Mitsubishi MU-2
- 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
- N2CJ
- Operator
- Dennis M Jones · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, CATo 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
- Approach
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER DEPG SANTA MONICA AT NGT, MITSUBISHI MU-2 PLT CTCD TRACON FOR CLNC THRU TCA AT 6500'. TRACON TRIED TO GET AUTOMATED VFR HANDOFF TO ARTCC, BUT WAS UNABLE. RADAR SVC WAS TRMTD & PLT CTCD (NON-RADAR EQUIPPED) SANTA BARBARA FSS (HOME ARPT). HE WAS ADZ WX WAS 500' SCT, 2700' BKN, 4000' OVC, VIS 6 MI WITH FOG. PLT HAD NOT FILED FLT PLAN & BGN A VOR RWY 25 APCH WO OBTAINING CLNC. AS HE CONTD IBND, MU-2 DSCNDD THRU CLDS & CONVERGED WITH FAIRCHILD SA227 THAT WAS ON IFR APCH TO ARPT. ARTCC CTLR, WHO HAD BEEN CTLG SA227, ADZD FSS SPECIALIST OF SITUATION. PLTS OF BOTH ACFT WERE ADZD OF OTR ACFT'S PSN. MU-2 PLT DID NOT RESPOND WHEN ASKED IF HE WAS IN IMC. MU-2 PLT RPRTD 7 OR 8 MI OUT ON VOR APCH. HE WAS TOLD AGAIN OF SA227 ON FINAL APCH & TO PHONE ARTCC AFTER LNDG. NO FURTHER RDO CALLS WERE RCVD FM MU-2 PLT. RADAR DATA SHOWED MU-2 CONVERGED WI 400' OF SA227. PLT BGN LEFT TURN OVR SHORELINE AS IF TO CIRCLE FOR SPACING, BUT MU-2 ENTERED DSCNT & CRASHED IN OCEAN. EXAM OF LGT BULBS INDCD MASTER CAUTION & BATTERY OVR TEMP LGTS WERE ILLUMINATED DRG IMPACT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE AFTER BECOMING SPATIALLY DISORIENTED. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS, LOW OVERCAST CLOUD CONDITION, THE PILOT'S DECISION TO CONTINUE VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), WHICH RESULTED IN A NEAR COLLISION WITH ANOTHER AIRCRAFT, HIS SELF INDUCED PRESSURE AND DIVERSION OF ATTENTION, WHILE COPING WITH THE SITUATION THAT HE HAD ENCOUNTERED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA280
- Event ID
- 20001212X17288
- Case number
- LAX91FA280
- 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 1991-06-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 16ff90c911a8b9e18e59ac66e9a1509dfd60da4e27ce70b5e6822fe6154c6713; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:44:29.411Z.