LAX88FA082 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From General William J Fox Airfield (WJF) to Napa County Airport (APC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX88FA082
- 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
- 2 · 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 PA-28-181
- 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
- N2938X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General William J Fox Airfield (WJF), Lancaster, CATo Napa County Airport (APC), Napa, 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 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
- Pilot in command › Weather forecast, disregarded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS RETURNING AFTER A 2 WEEK VACATION TRIP TO ARIZONA. AT AN ENROUTE STOP THE PLT ORDERED THE ACFT FUELED TO PARTIAL TANK CAPACITY ON 1 SIDE & FULL ON THE OTHER. HE ALSO GOT A WX BRIEFING WHICH ADVISED AGAINST VFR FLT DUE TO CLOUDS, FOG & RAIN. THE PLT HAD AN INST RATING BUT WAS NOT CURRENT. THE PLT CONT ON TO THE DEST & FOUND WORSE WX CONDS THAN FORECAST. HE ASKED OAKLAND CENTER FOR AN APPROACH & WAS GIVEN HOLDING INSTRUCTIONS & TOLD TO EXPECT DELAYS DUE TO HEAVY IFR TRAFFIC. AT THAT TIME THE ACFT HAD ABOUT 1 HR & 30 MINS OF FUEL LEFT. THE PLT HELD FOR 47 MINS BEFORE AN APPROACH CLEARANCE WAS ISSUED. ON THE APPROACH THE PLT REPORTED THE VOR INBOUND BUT RADAR DATA SHOWED HE WAS OVER THE ARPT INSTEAD. THE PLT WAS 3 MILES PAST ARPT WHEN CONTROLLERS TOLD HIM HIS POSITION. PLT CLAIMED HE HAD A FIRE & HAD LOST HIS GYROS & ASKED FOR VECTORS TO ARPT. ACFT CRASHED WHILE MANEUVERING IN IFR COND. NO EVIDENCE OF FIRE OR GYRO FAILURE WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
PILOT'S INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT WHILE MANEUVERING IN IFR CONDITIONS AFTER BECOMING DISORIENTED WHILE EXECUTING AN INSTRUMENT APPROACH PROCEDURE. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOTS LACK OF RECENT INSTRUMENT FLIGHT EXPERIENCE AND THE AIRCRAFT FUEL STATE WHICH WAS NEAR EXHAUSTION. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOTS DECISION TO CONTINUE THE FLIGHT IN THE FACE OF A WEATHER BRIEIFING WHICH ADVISED AGAINST VFR FLIGHT, AND HIS DECISION NOT TO PROCEED TO AN ALTERNATE DESTINATION WITH BETTER WEATHER CONDITIONS AT A EARLIER STAGE IN THE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX88FA082
- Event ID
- 20001213X24915
- Case number
- LAX88FA082
- 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 1988-01-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fe99c78eb77d2dd46e0daf7c03c4a62df75a97c1a840f811d44e62c00b426386; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:51:08.965Z.