LAX85FA071 · Grumman American AA-5A
Grumman American AA-5A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (YUM) to Lemoore Naval Air Station (Reeves Field) Airport (NLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85FA071
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Grumman American AA-5A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman American AA-5
- 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
- N26131
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (YUM), Yuma, AZTo Lemoore Naval Air Station (Reeves Field) Airport (NLC), LEMOORE NAS, 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
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS ON A NIGHT X-COUNTRY FLT. WHEN THE ACFT DID NOT ARRIVE AT ITS DESTINATION, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED. ON 12/12/84, THE PLANE WAS FOUND WHERE IT HAD IMPACTED AN AREA OF RISING TERRAIN WHILE APPROACHING THE TEHACHAPI MOUNTAINS. IMPACT OCCURRED ON A RELATIVELY FLAT AREA AT AN ELEVATION OF 4250 FT WHILE THE ACFT WAS IN A WINGS LEVEL, TAIL LOW ATTITUDE & ON A HEADING OF 336 DEG. FROM 1/2 TO 2 MI WEST OF THE ACCIDENT SITE, THE TERRAIN ROSE RAPIDLY TO 6700 FT. THE AREA WINDS ALOFT AT 9000 & 12,000 FT WERE FORECAST TO BE FROM 333 DEG AT 45 KTS & 320 DEG AT 54 KTS, RESPECTIVELY. NO EVIDENCE OF A PREIMPACT MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE WAS FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85FA071
- Event ID
- 20001214X41806
- Case number
- LAX85FA071
- 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 1984-12-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aa529f9758c3cbc6e98fd18c82ef483f0279986957a59b3c17709e49742474d7; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:13:08.769Z.