LAX87FA335 · Mooney M20J
Cal. Pacific Associates Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Buchanan Field (CCR) to Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87FA335
- 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
- 1 · 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
Mooney M20J
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M20
- 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
- N3551H
- Operator
- Cal. Pacific Associates
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CATo Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, 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
- Approach · IFR initial approach
- 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 › IFR procedure, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD FLOWN 5.6 HOURS DURING THE DAY, STARTING THE FIRST FLIGHT ABOUT 0600. ATC CONTROLLERS STATED THAT THE PILOT DID NOT FOLLOW THE CLEARANCE ISSUED TO HIM. THE CONTROLLERS THEN ISSUED RADAR VECTORS. THE INSTRUCTOR THE PILOT FLEW WITH EARLIER IN THE DAY STATED THAT HE HAD SUGGESTED TO THE PILOT THAT HE SPEND THE NIGHT AT THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT BUT THE PILOT DECIDED TO DEPART. DURING THE FLIGHT THE PILOT REPORTED TO ATC THAT HE WAS TIRED AND WASN'T DOING TOO WELL. THE CONTROLLER STATED LATER THAT THE PILOT HAD TROUBLE FOLLOWING THE VECTORS GIVEN TO HIM. SHORTLY AFTER THE PILOTACKNOWLEDGED CLEARANCE FOR THE ILS THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE TERRAIN HEADING 180 DEGREES AWAY FROM THE INBOUND LOC COURSE. THE PILOT'S LOGBOOK SHOWED ONLY 8 HOURS OF ACTUAL INSTRUMENT TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87FA335
- Event ID
- 20001213X32107
- Case number
- LAX87FA335
- 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 1987-09-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c6547a96c6f48f93e4af471e8a2957e4e53426f35d7416ed7a7e300089b732c6; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:58:51.726Z.