Piedmont Aviation Boeing 767-201 accident
Boeing 767-201 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX88FA006
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Boeing 767-201
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 767
- 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
- N604P
- Operator
- Piedmont Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NCTo Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 terrain/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 › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CAPTAIN SENSED THE AIRCRAFT BALLOONING DURING THE FLARE. HE INCREASED THE PITCH ANGLE TO 11.8 DEGREES TO ARREST THE DESCENT DURING TOUCHDOWN. FLIGHT ATTENDANTS SITTING IN THE AFT CABIN CREW SEATS HEARD A SCRAPING SOUND JUST PRIOR TO MAIN LANDING GEAR TOUCHDOWN. THE TAIL STRUCK THE RUNWAY SURFACE DURING THE FLARE. THE AFT PRESSURE DOME WAS SCRAPED, BENT, AND BUCKLED. THE CAPTAIN ATTRIBUTED THE BALLOONING TO WAKE TURBULENCE OF A PRECEEDING DC-8 ARRIVAL. ACCORDING TO THE MANUFACTURER 11.0 DEGREES IS THE MAXIMUM PITCH ANGLE WITH THE OLEOS COMPRESSED. THE FDR READOUT DID NOT INDICATE THE PRESENCE OF WAKE TURBULENCE. THE CAPTAIN HAD RECENTLY BEEN TYPE-RATED IN THE BOEING 767 AND HAD ACCRUED A TOTAL OF 46 HOURS IN THE AIRCRAFT, 4.5 HOURS OF WHICH WAS ON THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX88FA006
- Event ID
- 20001213X32346
- Case number
- LAX88FA006
- 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 1987-10-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 43dbbec270d0bb12dd6926a28d1b468c775ede99ee6eb8961fa2dad731860206; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:36:57.379Z.