LAX85FA252 · Piper PA-28-161
Marin Aviation Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85FA252
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N81018
- Operator
- Marin Aviation
- 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
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, improper
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO WITNESSES ON A DUNE BUGGY & A HONDA TRX 200, THE ACFT WAS FLYING AT LOW ALT IN STRONG WINDS WHEN IT SEEMED TO ENCOUNTER TURBULENCE & GO OUT OF CONTROL. SOME OF THE WITNESSES SAID IT TEMPORARILY LEVELED AT ABOUT 200 FT AGL. ALL AGREED THAT IT WAS AT ABOUT 150 TO 200 FT AGL WHEN IT ENTERED A STEEP DSCNT & CRASHED ON DESERT TERRAIN. AN EXAM REVEALED THE ACFT IMPACTED IN A NOSE LOW, NEARLY WINGS LEVEL ATTITUDE. THE PROP SEPARATED DURING IMPACT & EXHIBITEDTORSIONAL OVERLOAD INDICATIONS. THE PROP BLADES WERE TWISTED & HAD GOUGES ON THE LEADING EDGES. A CHECK OF THE PLT'S BLOOD SHOWED AN ALCOHOL LEVEL OF 0.147%. ACCORDING TO AN NTSB WX SUMMARY, THE MEAN SURFACE WIND IN THAT AREA WAS ESTIMATED TO BE FROM 220 DEG AT 22 GUSTING 40 KTS WITH PROBABLE MODERATE TO SEVERE TURBULENCE & UP/DOWNDRAFTS BELOW 10,000 FT. THE WITNESSES ESTIMATED THE WIND WAS FROM 280 DEG AT 40 GUSTING 50 KTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85FA252
- Event ID
- 20001214X36490
- Case number
- LAX85FA252
- 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 local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c26c3e4030b92e35922e5d53e75c89316916c372429d5c097f8b450053030ff5; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:01:45.147Z.