LAX86FA131 · Piper PA-28-181
Aero Flight Center Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86FA131
- 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
- 3 · 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-28-181
- 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
- N81918
- Operator
- Aero Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, CATo not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Altitude › Misjudged
- Dual student › Impairment(alcohol)
- Dual student › Impairment(drugs)
- Dual student › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS RPRTED TO BE ON A DUAL, NIGHT RECURRENT, TRAINING FLT. THE STUDENT PLT'S WIFE RPRTD THAT THE FLT INSTRUCTOR(CFI) & HER HUSBAND HAD BEEN DRINKING BEER BEFORE THEY & THE PASSENGER (ANOTHER STUDENT PLT) DEPARTED ON THE FLT. GROUND WITNESSES OBSERVED THE ACFT FLY VERY LOW OVER A PIER AT NEWPORT BEACH, THEN ENTER A RGT CLIMBING TURN. AS THE ACFT CONTINUED THE TURN, IT BEGAN A DESCENT & SUBSEQUENTLY CONTACTED THE OCEAN, CARTWHEELED & SANK. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THE ACFT HAD IMPACTED IN A NOSE LOW, RGT WING LOW ATTITUDE. TOXICOLOGY EXAMS REVEALED THE STUDENT HAD A BLOOD/ALCOHOL LEVEL OF 0.11%, BUT ONLY A SLIGHT AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL (0.02%) WAS FOUND IN THE CFI'S BLOOD. TESTS FOR DRUGS SHOWED THE STUDENT HAD 0.32 MICROGRAMS/ML OF BENZOYLECGONINE IN HIS BLOOD. ALSO, IN 1 OF 2 TESTS FOR COCAINE, THE STUDENT'S BLOOD TESTED POSITIVE. TOXICOLOGY CHECKS OF THE PASSENGER FOR ALCOHOL & DRUGS WERE NEGATIVE. THE CFI HAD ONLY 392 HRS TOTAL FLT TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86FA131
- Event ID
- 20001213X33080
- Case number
- LAX86FA131
- 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 1986-03-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a09b7698b084ba3be67f5f3cd1f2922d4f94209c58dabc9bb66ab350a0780f6d; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:39:22.579Z.