LAX87FA121 · Beech F33A
Beech F33A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 4LO · Aguanga, CA to General Rodolfo Sánchez Taboada International Airport (MXL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87FA121
- 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
- 4 · 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
Beech F33A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N59AB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4LO · Aguanga, CATo General Rodolfo Sánchez Taboada International Airport (MXL), Mexicali
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 controls, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
- Pilot in command › Weather forecast, disregarded
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT & 3 PAX PLANNED A PLEASURE FLT TO MX. THE WEATHER WAS BELOW VFR MINIMUMS HOWEVER THE PLT ELECTED TO ATTEMPT THE FLT. SEVERAL MINUTES AFTER DEPARTURE THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED TO ENTER AN AREA WHERE IT WAS SNOWING, THE CLOUD BASE WAS ESTIMATED AT 200 FEET AGL, & THE VISIBILITY VARIED FROM 50 FT TO 1 MILE. A WITNESS OBSERVED AN ACFT FLYING BELOW THE CLOUDS IN A STEEP LEFT BANK. THE ACFT SUDDENLY ROLLED RIGHT, PITCHED UPWARDS (ABT 30 DEGREES) AND FLEW INTO THE CLOUDS. ANOTHER WITNESS, LOCATED IN HIS HOUSE ABT 150 FT SOUTH OF THE ACC SITE, HEARD A SOUND LIKE AN ACFT ENG IN A POWER DIVE. HE THEN HEARD A LOUD DULL THUD AND LOOKED OUTSIDE AND SAW THE ACFT IN HIS APPLE ORCHARD. EXAM OF THE ACFT & ENG DID NOT REVEAL ANY PREIMPACT FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87FA121
- Event ID
- 20001213X30255
- Case number
- LAX87FA121
- 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: 66b5e8c5fff72c2c64bb8407aa2b420e3f10f59a91cc930126213e16769a37a6; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:13:08.201Z.