LAX84FA453 · Cessna 320C
Cessna 320C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) to Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84FA453
- 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
- 5 · 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 320C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N7AE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY), Monterey, CATo Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH), Fresno, 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 · climb to 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
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLT ARRIVED IN MONTEREY, CA, THAT AFTERNOON. AFTER DINNER THE FLT WAS RETURNING TO THE POINT OF ORIGINAL DEPARTURE. WHEN THE PLT CONTACTED THE TWR FOR TAXI INSTRUCTION HE WAS INFORMED THAT MONTEREY WX WAS BELOW VFR MINIMUMS. AFTER A DISCUSSION OF WX CONDITIONS IN THE VICINITY AND THE NEARBY MOUNTAINS, THE CONTROLLER ISSUED A SPECIAL VFR CLEARANCE OUT OF THE CONTROL ZONE. AT 2051 PDT THE ACFT WAS CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF. AT 2054 WHEN ASKED BY THE CONTROLLER IF THE HIGHWAY WAS IN SIGHT THE PLT RESPONDED 'ROGER.' THE CONTROLLER INSTRUCTED THE PLT TO STAY OVER THE HIGHWAY AND TO STANDBY ON TWRFREQ. AT 2055 THE CONTROLLER CALLED THE ACFT TO TURN LEFT WARNING OF RISING TERRAIN. THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED ON RADAR TO CLIMB IN A RIGHT TURN FROM 900 TO 1500 FEET BEFORE RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST ABOUT 4.5 MILES EAST OF THE ARPT. THE ACFT IMPACTED THE 30 DEGREE UPSLOPING TERRAIN IN A NOSE DOWN INVERTED ATTITUDE AND WAS CONSUMED BY POST CRASH FIRE. ELEVATION AT THE ARPT AND ACCIDENT SITE WERE 244 AND 744 FT MSL RESPECTIVELY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84FA453
- Event ID
- 20001214X40746
- Case number
- LAX84FA453
- 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 1984-08-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 82aeec57f351445e44f20155afde14bc3d610dd6fe5aaf3806bedf1846f5dff5; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:22:42.094Z.