LAX90LA108 · Piper PA-32-R-300 PA-32-R-30
Piper PA-32-R-300 PA-32-R-30 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Merced Regional Macready Field (MCE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90LA108
- 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
Piper PA-32-R-300 PA-32-R-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N38908
- Operator
- Disbrow, Eric · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merced Regional Macready Field (MCE), Merced, CATo 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
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Flight control, elevator surface › Foreign object damage
- Object › Bird(s)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF A PIPER PA32 ENCOUNTERED A LARGE BIRD WHILE ON DOWNWIND FOR LANDING. THE BIRD IMPACTED THE HORIZONTAL ELEVATOR CAUSING IT TO BIND. THE AIRCRAFT LANDED SAFELY WITH NO MORE DIFFICULTIES. THE DAMAGE TO THE ELEVATOR REQUIRED ITS REMOVAL AND REPLACEMENT.
Probable cause
AN INADVERTENT COLLISION WITH A LARGE BIRD DURING THE HOURS OF DARKNESS WHILE IN THE LANDING PATTERN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90LA108
- Event ID
- 20001212X22446
- Case number
- LAX90LA108
- 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 1990-01-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 41bff27218e113012e1c0e4793405be1a7c693aee7f5377deed54c493ef74072; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:50:38.401Z.