LAX89FA069 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From L66 · Corona, CA to Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89FA069
- 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 T210L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N94210
- Operator
- Thrasher, Daniel R. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L66 · Corona, CATo Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL), Riverside, 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
- 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 › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › Spiral, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Norco, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED A TELEPHONIC IFR CLEARANCE FROM CHINO TOWER. THE PILOT DEPARTED CORONA AND CONTACTED THE ONTARIO TRACON DEPARTURE CONTROLLER. THE CONTROLLER INSTRUCTED THE PILOT TO RESET HIS TRANSPONDER AND THE PILOT COMPLIED, BUT FAILED TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANY FURTHER TRANSMISSIONS. THE AIRPLANE CRASHED ABOUT ONE MINUTE LATER. THE RECORDED RADAR DATA REVEALED THE AIRPLANE WAS IN A CLIMBING RIGHT TURN, REACHING A MAXIMUM ALTITUDE OF 1,500 FT MSL (1,000 FT AGL) WHEN THE PLT INITIALLY CALLED ONTARIO TRACON. AFTER REACHING 1,500 FT THE AIRPLANE'S RATE OF TURN INCREASED AND IT BEGAN DESCENDING RAPIDLY. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE TERRAIN IN A 10 DEGREE NOSE LOW, 30 DEGREE RIGHT BANK ATTITUDE. THE INVESTIGATION DID NOT DISCLOSE ANY PREIMPACT MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES.
Probable cause
ACCIDENT WAS THAT THE PILOT BECAME DISORIENTED AND WAS UNABLE TO ARREST THE ENSUING DESCENDING SPIRALING TURN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89FA069
- Event ID
- 20001213X27435
- Case number
- LAX89FA069
- 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: c85fb1eb1141cbcf4919d94ae0a2a660e9ff1ed8417facdad46d061965c7048c; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:26:50.959Z.