LAX90LA326 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR) to Imperial County Airport (IPL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90LA326
- 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
- 1 · 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-28-180
- 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
- N6528J
- Operator
- MC Collough, Floyd
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR), Burbank, CATo Imperial County Airport (IPL), Imperial, 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 · climb to 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
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Mount Wilson, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED 2800-HR PRIVATE PILOT WAS EXPERIENCED IN THE AIRPLANE AND FAMILIAR WITH THE ROUTE OF FLIGHT. THE PILOT OBSERVED THE DARK OVERCAST SKY CONDITIONS IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS PLANNED TRIP, & INDICATED THAT WHILE EN ROUTE IF THE WEATHER DETERIORATED HE WOULD RETURN TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. THE PILOT TOOK OFF UNDER VFR CONDITIONS & HEADED IN AN EASTERLY DIRECTION. EIGHT MIN LATER THE PILOT CONTACTED RADAR & REQUESTED FLIGHT FOLLOWING SERVICE TOWARD HIS EASTERLY DESTINATION. TWO MIN LATER THE AIRPLANE WAS IDENTIFIED ON RADAR, & TWO MIN THEREAFTER RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. THE LAST FOUR MIN OF RECORDED RADAR SHOWED THAT THE AIRPLANE HAD CLIMBED FROM 2600 FT TO 3500 FEET MSL & HAD TURNED 90 DEG LEFT FROM AN EASTERLY TO A NORTHERLY COURSE. NEARBY WEATHER REPORTING FACILITIES INDICATED THE CLOUD BASE & TOPS WERE RESPECTIVELY 3800 FT & 5700 FT MSL. THE CRASH SITE WAS 4750 FT MSL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT FLIGHT INTO IMC. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS RELATED TO THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO REQUEST IN-FLIGHT WEATHER AVOIDANCE ASSISTANCE AND HIS MISJUDGED EVALUATION OF THE EN ROUTE WEATHER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90LA326
- Event ID
- 20001212X24310
- Case number
- LAX90LA326
- 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: ff9447af4d527eb3b984366aec8921d5728377c6d979c9c82ef5e8807599d8c0; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:11:20.320Z.