LAX99LA263 · Partenavia P68C
Partenavia P68C · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
From an unrecorded airport to Kalaupapa Airport (LUP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA263
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Partenavia P68C
- Aircraft type
- Partenavia P68
- 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
- N4234L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Kalaupapa Airport (LUP), KALAUPAPA, HI
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Security, not complied with
- Passenger › Planning/decision, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Five passengers had chartered the airplane for a flight. Four of the passengers arrived at the airport, passed through the operator's boarding gate and entered the airplane. The pilot prepared to taxi for takeoff, started the engines, and performed other related duties in the cockpit. The late arriving fifth adult (prospective) passenger arrived at the airport and attempted to gain access to the ramp area where the airplane was parked. The passenger was described by witnesses as being 'frantic' and looking 'very upset.' He made several attempts to gain access via closed terminal gates and was observed to bang on closed glass doors while yelling 'that's my plane, that's my plane' in an attempt to acquire attention. The passenger located a nearby open and unguarded freight-loading gate next to the terminal. He passed through the unattended gate, ran toward the airplane while waving his arms, and contacted the left engine's rotating propeller. An investigation of the gate area revealed the area was marked with signs stating 'KEEP OUT RESTRICTED AREA' and 'AUTHORIZED AIRPORT EMPLOYEES ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.' The gate was being used for freight movement by a different operator, whose loader had left the gate open while handling cargo in another area. Under FAA and state regulations, the company's freight loader had a responsibility to ensure that the gate was secure from entry by unauthorized persons at all times.
Probable cause
The prospective passenger's intentional act of bypassing proscribed airport procedures for boarding aircraft. A factor was the failure of another operator's ground personnel to comply with ramp access restrictions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA263
- Event ID
- 20001212X19552
- Case number
- LAX99LA263
- 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: 4080376668bafd3e8f194b96446e3ff5c2beaa5056b5e7be940450312ea86ee4; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:54:41.817Z.