LAX90FA113 · Piper PA28-161
Piper PA28-161 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Oxnard Airport (OXR) to Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90FA113
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N2951S
- Operator
- Kazuhiko Nakamura
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oxnard Airport (OXR), Oxnard, CATo Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, 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
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Malibu, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND HIS THREE PASSENGERS TOOK OFF ON A FLIGHT UNDER INSTRUMENT FLIGHT RULES AND IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS TO ANOTHER AIRPORT FOR DINNER. AFTER DINNER THE PILOT AND HIS PASSENGERS TOOK OFF ON A NIGHT FLIGHT, UNDER VISUAL FLIGHT RULES, TO RETURN TO THEIR HOME AIRPORT. THE AIRCRAFT INITIALLY CLIMBED TO 2700 FEET MSL THEN BEGAN A SLOW ENROUTE DESCENT. RADAR CONTACT WITH THE AIRCRAFT WAS LOST AS IT DESCENDED THROUGH 1800 FEET MSL WHILE TRACKING OVER THE COAST ON AN EASTERLY HEADING. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED A MOUNTAIN, NORTH OF THE COAST LINE, AT AN ELEVATION OF 1600 FEET, WHILE IN LEVEL FLIGHT AND WHILE ON A WESTERLY HEADING.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DECISION TO TURN INTO AN AREA OF KNOWN HIGH TERRAIN AFTER INADVERTENTLY ENCOUNTERING INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90FA113
- Event ID
- 20001212X22734
- Case number
- LAX90FA113
- 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 1990-03-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0712070bb30f290b6c6829c6c35896150974826f5875646de9707bfffa81fb79; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:53:49.306Z.