LAX90FA017 · Beech F35
Beech F35 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From 045 · Vacaville, CA to Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90FA017
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech F35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N5034B
- Operator
- Roy Niewald
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 045 · Vacaville, CATo Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS), SONAMA COUNTY, 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 collision with object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND PASSENGER PLANNED A 40 NM PLEASURE FLIGHT TO A NEIGHBORING AIRPORT FOR LUNCH. ON THE RETURN FLIGHT, THE PILOT FLEW LOW OVER LAKE BERRYESSA. WHILE CROSSING THE LAKE, THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH TWO TRANSMISSION WIRES THAT SPANNED THE LAKE, THEN CRASHED. THE LINES WERE ABOUT 125 AND 135 FT AGL AND WERE DEPICTED ON THE SECTIONAL AERONAUTICAL CHART.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE VISUAL LOOKOUT BY THE PILOT AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN PROPER ALTITUDE. THE POWER LINES WAS A RELATED FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90FA017
- Event ID
- 20001213X29628
- Case number
- LAX90FA017
- 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: af02957c1f64c295d98bd036fc7e674faba593103d910c874604765dbe68f364; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:06:19.319Z.