LAX89LA227 · Piper PA-38-112
Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89LA227
- 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
- 0 · 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-38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-38
- 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
- N23687
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, CATo not recorded
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS LANDING TO THE SOUTHEAST AND UNAWARE OF THE DOWNWIND CONDITIONS (WINDS OUT OF THE WEST AT AN ESTIMATED 12 TO 15 KNOTS). HE ESTIMATED HIS AIRSPEED TO BE APPROXIMATELY 20 KNOTS HIGHER THAN NORMAL AND THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN BEYOND THE HALF WAY POINT OF THE 2500 FOOT AIRSTRIP. HE DETERMINED THAT A GO-AROUND WAS NO LONGER POSSIBLE AND VEERED THE ACFT OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE ACFT NOSE GEAR SANK INTO SOFT TERRAIN AND THE ACFT NOSED OVER.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO SELECT THE PROPER RUNWAY FOR EXISTING WIND CONDITIONS AND TO EXECUTE A GO-AROUND WHEN TOUCHDOWN AT THE PROPER POINT WAS NOT ACCOMPLISHED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89LA227
- Event ID
- 20001213X28608
- Case number
- LAX89LA227
- 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 1989-06-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d6c025acab6bf77e2acfacd76a083a69f488d5d9462e43fe79b059cd13c7a0cb; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:27:44.734Z.