LAX00FA101 · Cessna 172N
Bermuda Dunes Air Service Cessna 172N and Alliance International Aviation Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00FA101
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N6479D
- Operator
- Bermuda Dunes Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP), Palm Springs, CATo Bermuda Dunes Airport (UDD), Bermuda Dunes, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Piper PA-28-140
- 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
- N84PB
- Operator
- Alliance International Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, CATo Palm Springs International Airport (PSP)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Flightcrew of other aircraft › Visual separation, not maintained
- Flightcrew › Visual separation, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A high-wing airplane and low-wing airplane collided in mid-air while operating in the traffic pattern at a controlled airport. The air traffic controller issued traffic advisories to both aircraft, and each pilot acknowledged the advisories. The controller also requested that the low-wing airplane, which was inbound to the airport, to "report two miles out on the forty five." The pilot of the low-wing airplane acknowledged the request; however, there was no evidence that the pilot gave the report. The high-wing airplane was in the process of making a right turn from crosswind to the downwind leg when the low-wing airplane (inbound on a 30 degree entry to downwind) impacted the high-wing airplane's left wing with its propeller and lower engine cowling. The high-wing airplane subsequently lost control, the flight instructor recovered, and conducted an emergency landing in a desert area adjacent to the airport. The low-wing airplane continued to the airport and landed without further incident. Review of the air traffic control system revealed that the control tower was not utilizing the Digital Bright Radar Indicator Tower Equipment (D-BRITE), which would provide controllers with additional radar data on the airplanes, because it was out of service due to being unreliable. However, FAA directives state that the D-BRITE system was never intended to be utilized for traffic separation. The pilots were informed that they did not have radar coverage while in the controlled airspace via the Automatic Terminal Information Service. Additionally, the Airman's Information Manual states that regardless of radar coverage, pilots have the sole responsibility to see and avoid other aircraft.
Probable cause
the failure of both flight crews to see and avoid the other airplane while operating in the traffic pattern, which resulted in a mid-air collision. A contributing factor was the failure of the arriving aircraft to comply with air traffic control requests by not issuing a position report.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00FA101
- Event ID
- 20001212X20505
- Case number
- LAX00FA101
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-02-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a72c1dc9b50f9b1861f385a79c6d27e64a6a451bb0b3abccf437c27d0eebf0de; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:18:28.730Z.