LAX85LA133 · Piper PA-32-300
Volar Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Gillespie Field (SEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85LA133
- 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
- Unknown
Piper PA-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N30069
- Operator
- Volar
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Gillespie Field (SEE), San Diego, 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 on ground/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 › Compensation for wind conditions, improper
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER SPENDING THE DAY SKIING, THE PLT & PASSENGERS PLANNED TO DEPART ON A RETURN FLT TO SAN DIEGO. THE WIND WAS FROM 210 TO 220 DEG AT ABOUT 10 MPH. THE PLT ELECTED TO TAKEOFF ON RWY 7 SINCE LOW CLOUDS WERE APPROACHING FROM THE WEST & THE VISIBILITY WAS NEAR ZERO IN THAT DIRECTION. THE VISIBILITY TO THE EAST WAS APRX 2 MI. REPORTEDLY, THE ACFT TRAVELED ABOUT 2500 FT & HAD ACCELERATED TO 55 MPH WHEN IT WAS ROTATED FOR TAKEOFF. AT ABOUT THAT TIME, IT VEERED LEFT, OVERRAN THE EDGE OF THE RWY & COLLIDED WITH A SNOW BANK. NO PRE-ACCIDENT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS REPORTED. THE ARPT ELEV WAS 6750 FT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85LA133
- Event ID
- 20001214X35724
- Case number
- LAX85LA133
- 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 1985-02-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b14c5a96c68ac8f0333e022c420d59f84ee6813744fd659c4d6842084b56bf9a; retrieved 2026-09-23T18:37:07.502Z.