LAX01LA047 · Wsk Pzl Warzawa-Okecie PZL-104 WILGA 80 PZL-104 WI
Wsk Pzl Warzawa-Okecie PZL-104 WILGA 80 PZL-104 WI · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to Kahului International Airport (OGG)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA047
- 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
Wsk Pzl Warzawa-Okecie PZL-104 WILGA 80 PZL-104 WI
- Aircraft type
- WSK PZL Warzawa Okecie PZL-104
- 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
- N112B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo Kahului International Airport (OGG), Kahului, 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 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane lost airspeed and altitude while sightseeing in a valley and made an emergency landing on a hillside in mountainous terrain. While looking at the valley below the airplane was caught in a severe downdraft from which the pilot was unable to recover. There were no discrepancies noted with the airframe or power plant by the pilot. He did note that when he added power there was not enough power available to compensate for the downdraft. The pilot stated that his preflight weather briefing indicated clear skies with visual flight rules recommended. He also stated that the airplane was caught in a downdraft on the lee side of mountainous terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper assessment of in-flight weather conditions, his inadequate compensation for winds, and his failure to maintain sufficient altitude and clearance on the lee side of mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA047
- Event ID
- 20001212X22311
- Case number
- LAX01LA047
- 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 2000-11-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9d4622d1c82f29d16bac5041111b8304019839ece7dfcd44e92e608443947c30; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:18:34.245Z.