LAX88LA011 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) to San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX88LA011
- 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-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N4342B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), San Jose, CATo San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP), San Luis Obispo, 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 · descent
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT BECAME DISORIENTED WHEN HE INADVERTENTLY FLEW INTO A LAYER OF FOG WHILE MAKING AN ENROUTE DESCENT FOR LANDING AT HIS DESTINATION. THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH TREES WHILE THE PILOT WAS ATTEMPTING TO EXECUTE A CLIMBING COURSE REVERSAL. THE PILOT STATED THAT DURING THE APPROACH HE LOST CONTACT WITH ALL GROUND LIGHTS AND ENTERED A SHARP BANK IN AN EFFORT TO TURN AROUND AND CLIMB. 'THE ABRUPT MANEUVERS AND TOTAL LACK OF GROUND REFERENCE CAUSED ME TO BECOME DISORIENTED.'
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX88LA011
- Event ID
- 20001213X32362
- Case number
- LAX88LA011
- 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 1987-10-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 16217f711ce02bbe8ca5b5900b46ef08a453087fd26f36263ccddd326f822707; retrieved 2026-09-23T11:52:45.541Z.