LAX91FA399 · Piper PA-28-181
Golden Gate Aviation Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Meadows Field (BFL) to San Carlos Airport (SQL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA399
- 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
- 2 · 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
Piper PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8272Y
- Operator
- Golden Gate Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, CATo San Carlos Airport (SQL), San Carlos, 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
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not selected
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE 229-HOUR INSTRUMENT RATED PRIVATE PILOT DEPARTED BAKERSFIELD FOR A FLIGHT HOME DURING BRIGHT NIGHTIME VFR CONDITIONS. APPROACHING HIS DESTINATION AIRPORT, SAN CARLOS, THE PILOT CONTACTED NAS MOFFETT AND RECEIVED PERMISSION TO TRANSIT ITS AIRSPACE. THE PILOT WAS TOLD TO REPORT OVER THE AIRPORT. AS THE PILOT APPROACHED THE AIRPORT HE LIKELY ENCOUNTERED A FORECAST OVERCAST LAYER OF CLOUDS HAVING BASES AT 1,000 FEET. THE PILOT MADE A 60 TO 70 DEGREE CHANGE OF COURSE AWAY FROM NAS MOFFETT AND PROBABLY ATTEMPTED TO FLY BENEATH THE CLOUDS WHILE OVER THE DENSELY POPULATED AND ILLUMINATED AREAS OF THE CITY. THE PILOT ENTERED THE BASE OF THE CLOUDS, CONTINUED FLYING UNTIL ENTERING A MOUNTAINOUS AREA AND LOST VISUAL REFERENCE TO THE CITY. SECONDS BEFORE IMPACT THE PILOT REQUESTED THE FREQUENCY FOR A NEARBY RADAR FACILITY. THE PILOT WAS FAMILIAR WITH THE AREA HAVING RECENTLY LEARNED TO FLY IN THE VICINITY.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN THE PROPER ALTITUDE, HIS IMPROPER INFLIGHT DECISION TO ATTEMPT FLIGHT BELOW THE BASE OF AN OVERCAST LAYER OF CLOUDS TOWARD RISING MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AND THE FLIGHT'S INADVERTENT ENTRY INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S MISJUDGED WEATHER EVALUATION AND HIS IMPROPER VFR PROCEDURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA399
- Event ID
- 20001212X18107
- Case number
- LAX91FA399
- 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 1991-09-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e0b9555c2ec3c616c6a911f7d69e86261c80dcded51fb98a56daf44070fd57cf; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:34:11.860Z.