LAX89FA058 · Cessna 182R
Cessna 182R · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Chino Airport (CNO) to Meadows Field (BFL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89FA058
- 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
Cessna 182R
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N5545N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, CATo Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER RECEIVING A FULL WEATHER BRIEFING THAT REPORTED STANDING LENTICULAR CLOUDS AND GUSTY SURFACE WINDS ALONG THE PROPOSED FLIGHT ROUTE, THE INSTRUMENT RATED PRIVATE PILOT AND AN INSTRUCTOR PILOT TOOKOFF ON A PERSONAL INSTRUMENT FLIGHT OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. AS THE AIRCRAFT BEGAN ITS DESCENT FOR LANDING THE CREW REPORTED THEY HAD ENTERED AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE AIRCRAFT WERE LOST, THE AIRCRAFT'S RADAR TARGET DISAPPEARED AND AN ELT RADIO SIGNALS WERE DETECTED. GROUND SEARCH PARTIES INITIATED A SEARCH AND THE WRECKAGE WAS LOCATED TEN HOURS LATER.
Probable cause
THE AIRCRAFT ENTERED INTO AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT. THE EXISTENCE OF A MOUNTAIN WAVE ALONG THE AIRCRAFT'S FLIGHT ROUTE, THE FAILURE OF THE CREW TO EVALUATE REPORTED WEATHER CONDITIONS ALONG THE FLIGHT ROUTE, THE CREWS ATTEMPT TO FLY INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND THE OVER CONFIDENCE OF THE CREW IN THE AIRCRAFT'S ABILITY WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89FA058
- Event ID
- 20001213X27267
- Case number
- LAX89FA058
- 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: 3fbbd2f30f307278fc03dc45c5ccf9d65aa17243c7d566bc0d7db476c561fb54; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:28:32.326Z.