LAX84FA339 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to Meadows Field (BFL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84FA339
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N5335M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, CATo Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH RISING TERRAIN AT THE 4200 FT LEVEL ABOUT 3 MILES SOUTH OF ELEVATIONS OF 6800 FT. GUARDS ON DUTY WITHIN A MILE OF THE ACCIDENT SITE SAID THE WEATHER AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WAS FOGGY WITH A LIGHT DRIZZLE AND NORTHWINDS OF 35 KTS. THE ACFT CRASHED ON A HEADING OF 180 DEGREES, WINGS LEVEL, IN A DESCENT AT HIGH SPEED. THE PLT HAD CALLED ONTARIO FSS AND ASKED FOR PLT REPORTS OF WEATHER OVER LAKE HUGHES AND INTO BAKERSFIELD. THE FSS HAD NO PLT REPORTS BUT ASKED IF HE WAS AWARE OF SIGMET MIKE 7. THE PLT SAID HE WAS. HE WAS GIVEN BAKERSFIELD WEATHER AND TOLD THAT PORTERVILLE VORTAC WAS OUT OF SERVICE. THE PLT ACKNOWLEDGED THIS INFORMATION. THERE IS NO RECORD OF FURTHER RADIO CONTACT WITH THE ACFT. THE ACFT DID NOT ARRIVE AT BAKERSFIELD AND AT ABOUT 1100 PDT THE NEXT DAY THE WRECKAGE WAS SIGHTED ABOUT 19 NM WEST OF ROSAMOND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84FA339
- Event ID
- 20001214X39974
- Case number
- LAX84FA339
- 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 1984-06-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c5c13d29ff480acc73c8ed8c05883c1127508c734953919cf3ffa012e1f566b6; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:30:11.632Z.