LAX83FA211 · Piper PA-28-181
Tri State Aviation Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to L12 · Redlands, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA211
- 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
- 4 · 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
Piper PA-28-181
- 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
- N9233K
- Operator
- Tri-State Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NVTo L12 · Redlands, 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE FLYING, THE PLT TOLD THE FBO THAT HE WOULD STAY IN THE LOCAL REDLANDS/RIVERSIDE, CA AREA. HOWEVER, AFTER TAKING OFF, HE FLEW TO LAS VEGAS, NV. HE DEPARTED LAS VEGAS AT 1636 PDT. WHEN HE DID NOT RETURN TO REDLANDS, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED. THE WRECKAGE OF THE ACFT WAS FOUND ABOUT 8 MI NORTH OF REDLANDS IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN WHERE THE PLANE HAD CRASHED AT AN ELEVATION OF ABOUT 5300 FT. IMPACT OCCURRED AT THE BASE OF A CLIFF IN A CANYON AREA. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. RADAR INFO INDICATED THE ACFT WAS FLYING AT A SLOW SPEED JUST PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE IMPACT SITE WAS LOCATED ABOUT 2 MI NORTH OF THE LAST RECORDED RADAR POSITION. A WX STUDY SHOWED THAT THE BASES OF THE CLOUDS IN THAT AREA WAS ABOUT 4000 FT MSL & THE CLOUD TOPS WERE NEAR 5000 FT. FLT VISIBILITY IN CLOUDS WAS ZERO MI & MODERATE TURBULENCE WAS PROBABLE BELOW 10,000 FT MSL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA211
- Event ID
- 20001214X42714
- Case number
- LAX83FA211
- 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 1983-04-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 091e712ab9fd159457cf3164e39625723bb4711d73f5035beba541e112992fd7; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:52:46.329Z.