LAX99LA223 · Devor MXL II
Devor MXL II · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From AZ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA223
- 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
- 0 · 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
Devor MXL II
- Aircraft type
- Devor MXL
- 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
- N98MD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AZTo not recorded
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Unqualified person › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Another pilot witnessed the accident. He reported that the pilot took off to the south. The aircraft began a gradual climb to approximately 50 feet agl and turned east. The witness stated that the aircraft began losing altitude about halfway through the turn. The witness stated that it did not sound as if the throttle was set at full power and opined that the pilot did not apply sufficient power to complete the turn. The aircraft impacted the ground in a nose down attitude while traveling approximately 30 miles per hour, according to the witness' estimation. The witness stated that at no time did he hear the engine cut out or stop and there did not appear to be a malfunction with the flight controls. He further reported that the pilot had flown solo approximately four times prior to the accident. At the time of writing this report, the pilot was hospitalized and in a coma. No one else was able to provide information or further details. According to the Federal Aviation Administration airman certification record files, the pilot has never held an FAA pilot's certificate.
Probable cause
The failure of the uncertificated pilot to maintain control of the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA223
- Event ID
- 20001212X19034
- Case number
- LAX99LA223
- 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 1999-06-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a99421066dd667f83c849b287cb60a89f7084e72a68b24f8ef4c9e4e7fd6e78d; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:59:40.580Z.