LAX85LA203 · Piper PA-28-140B
Piper PA-28-140B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Apple Valley Airport (APV) to WNP · PACOIMA, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85LA203
- 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-28-140B
- 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
- N8188N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Apple Valley Airport (APV), Apple Valley, CATo WNP · PACOIMA, 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 · 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 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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 › Emergency procedure, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Inadequate training(emergency procedure(s))
- Pilot in command › Lack of total experience in type operation
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, service of aircraft/equipment, improper
- Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, not obtained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PLT BECAME DISORIENTED WHILE ON A SOLO X-COUNTRY FLT DURING WICH HE WAS ON TOP OF AN OVERCAST. FUEL EXHAUSTION OCCURRED WHILE HE WAS BEING RADAR VECTORED TO AN ARPT. A FORCED LANDING WAS ATTEMPTED ON A FREEWAY OFFRAMP AND THE ACFT'S WING STRUCK A GUARD RAIL CAUSING SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85LA203
- Event ID
- 20001214X36233
- Case number
- LAX85LA203
- 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 1985-04-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7739c30a89ce0f4effa5300d4fd47ef4ff489c1b8038c9b196a3f734eac34ca4; retrieved 2026-09-23T18:02:37.946Z.