LAX91FA401 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Placerville Airport (PVF)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA401
- 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 PA-28-161
- 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
- N82857
- Operator
- Thom, Darrell D. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From not recordedTo Placerville Airport (PVF), Placerville, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Impairment(drugs)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FOUR PLACE AIRPLANE WAS LOADED WITH FIVE OCCUPANTS AND WAS DEPARTING A HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE AIRPORT EN ROUTE TO ANOTHER HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE AIRPORT FOR REFUELING. THE AIRPLANE EXCEEDED ITS MAXIMUM TAKEOFF GROSS WEIGHT. POSITIVE RESULTS WERE OBTAINED DURING THE TOXICOLOGIAL ANALYSIS ROUTINE ALCOHOL AND DRUG TESTS. THE PILOT TESTED POSITIVE FOR BENZOYLECGONINE, PHENDIMETRAZINE, AND PHENMETRAZINE. ACCORDING TO FORENSIC TOXICOLOGISTS, BENZOYLECGONINE IS A METABOLITE OF COCAINE. PHENDIMETRAZINE IS A CHEMICAL FOUND IN PRESCRIPTION APPETITE SUPPRESSANTS AND PHENMETRAZINE IS THE METABOLITE OF PHENDIMETRAZINE. THE FORENSIC TOXICOLOGIST ALSO INDICATED THE QUANTITIES OF PHENDIMETRAZINE AND PHENMETRAZINE FOUND IN THE PILOT'S SYSTEM WERE ELEVATED AND EXCEEDED THERAPEUTIC LEVELS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S ATTEMPTED TAKEOFF AT A HIGH DENSITY AIRPORT WITH THE AIRPLANE EXCEEDING ITS MAXIMUM GROSS TAKEOFF WEIGHT. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S USE OF ILLEGAL DRUGS AND ABUSE OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA401
- Event ID
- 20001212X18108
- Case number
- LAX91FA401
- 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: f446f9f5e0f16e7829167161b9e44acf9de24608007f7a47aa982a45730c4906; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:33:11.288Z.