LAX91LA304 · Piper PA24-250
Piper PA24-250 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From an unrecorded airport to Kingman Airport (IGM)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA304
- 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
Piper PA24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA24
- 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
- N8142P
- Operator
- Jack G. Preuss · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Kingman Airport (IGM), Kingman, AZ
- 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 · turn to landing area (emergency)
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A PILOT WITNESS ON THE AIRPORT REPORTED THAT THE ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT TAXIED OUT TO RUNWAY 18 AND DEPARTED. THE WITNESS SAID THE AIRCRAFT'S TAKEOFF GROUND ROLL SEEMED NORMAL AND THE AIRCRAFT ROTATED AT ABOUT THE TWO THIRDS POINT ON THE RUNWAY. HE SAID THE INITIAL CLIMB APPEARED TO BE NORMAL AND HE DIVERTED HIS ATTENTION TO COMPLETING THE PRE-TAKEOFF CHECKS ON HIS AIRCRAFT. HE STATED THAT HE HEARD THE PILOT TRANSMIT ON THE RADIO THAT 'I HAVE A BIG PROBLEM.' THE WITNESS SAID HE LOOKED UP AND SAW THE AIRCRAFT AT ABOUT 200 FEET AGL IN THE CLIMB THEN IT SEEMED TO STALL WITH A SUDDEN ROLLING BREAK TO THE LEFT, ENTER A LEFT HAND SPIN AND IMPACT THE GROUND IN A STEEP NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES WERE IDENTIFIED DURING THE EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT DURING AN ATTEMPTED RETURN TO RUNWAY MANEUVER AND THE ENTRY INTO AN INADVERTENT STALL/SPIN AT LOW ALTITUDE. THE EXACT NATURE OF THE EMERGENCY PROBLEM ENCOUNTERED BY THE PILOT IS UNDETERMINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA304
- Event ID
- 20001212X17595
- Case number
- LAX91LA304
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3444a9fbe0647e5dda41ed7ce24c96b40224b9e87ec7747fd5b06437e076edab; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:42:58.784Z.