LAX00FA144 · Commander 114
Commander 114 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From HJO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00FA144
- 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
- 4 · 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
Commander 114
- Aircraft type
- Commander 114
- 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
- N516CA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HJOTo 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
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Utility pole
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff, the airplane did not climb and collided with a utility pole near the end of the runway. It then crashed onto a city street, and caught fire after impacting the pavement. The airport manager observed the airplane on its takeoff roll. He noted that the engine had normal sounds, and that the entire runway was used for the takeoff roll. At the accident site, the flaps were found in the position specified by the takeoff checklist in the pilot's operating handbook (POH). The landing gear was extended, indicating it was not retracted following liftoff. The damage to the propeller found during the postaccident examination of the wreckage was indicative of operation at high rpm. Using the maximum allowable gross weight of the airplane, sea level pressure, and 20 degrees centigrade temperature, the Normal Takeoff Distance Chart (10 degrees flap extension) in the POH indicated that the airplane would require 2,100 feet to takeoff and climb to a 50-foot height. The runway used during the accident flight was 3,962 feet long. Examination of the thermally destroyed wreckage failed to reveal a reason for the lack of expected airplane performance.
Probable cause
undetermined. The pilot's failure to reject the takeoff and his failure to retract the landing gear following liftoff were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00FA144
- Event ID
- 20001212X20662
- Case number
- LAX00FA144
- 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: 3aaff2ddeac8e18819144f2fe75649830bc0d66ad154a30f32616e89305321be; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:22:52.928Z.