LAX87LA352 · Cessna 180K
Cessna 180K · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Hopland, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87LA352
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Unknown
Cessna 180K
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N66039
- Operator
- Dashiell, Richard A. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hopland, 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
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT & HIS DAUGHTER WERE BELIEVED TO HAVE DEPD HIS PVT AIRSTRIP ON 11/22/86 OR 11/23/86. THEY WERE RPRTD MISSING ON 11/24/86 & A SEARCH WAS BEGUN, BUT THE ACFT WAS NOT FND UNTIL 8/19/88, WHEN THE WRECKAGE WAS DISCOVERED BY HUNTERS. THE CRASH SITE WAS LOCATED ABOUT 10 MI NORTH OF THE PLT'S AIRSTRIP. AN EXAM REVEALED THE ACFT WAS TRAVELING ON A NORTH- WESTERLY HEADING WHEN IT STRUCK A TREE NEAR THE TOP OF A RIDGE. THE ACFT THEN CRASHED TO THE GROUND & CAME TO REST AGAINST A TREE ON THE RIDGE. THE ACFT WAS DESTROYED BY IMPACT & FIRE. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE WAS FOUND DURING AN EXAM OF THE BADLY BURNED WRECKAGE. THE ACDNT OCCURRED ON HILLY/MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AT AN ELEV OF ABOUT 1800'. AT THE APRX DATE OF THE ACDNT, THE WX WAS GENERALLY VFR. ABOUT 9 MI WEST AT UKIAH, CA, THERE WAS EARLY MORNING FOG & CEILINGS OF 2000' TO 3000' ON 11/22/86, WHICH CHANGED TO SCATTERED CLOUDS IN THE AFTERNOON. ON 11/23/86, NO CLD LAYERS WERE RPRTD BEL0W 20,000'. THE PLT WAS RPRTD TO BE DESPONDENT OVR SEPN FM HIS WIFE, 2 WKS BFR THE ACDNT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87LA352
- Event ID
- 20001213X35209
- Case number
- LAX87LA352
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f2475de1898dcab26ddd8098bd35c70b378113c0d73f95d6edd9abf6d269a253; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:19:45.518Z.