LAX83FA253 · Piper PA-28-151
Piper PA-28-151 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL) to L66 · Corona, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA253
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-151
- 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
- N54363
- Operator
- Reinaldo E. Ruiz · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL), Riverside, CATo L66 · Corona, 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Norco, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PLT HAD FLOWN TO THE RIVERTON ARPT TO ATTEND A GROUND SCHOOL. REPORTEDLY, PRIOR TO HIS DEPARTURE AT APRX 2235 PDT, STARS WERE VISIBLE OVERHEAD, BUT THE HORIZONTAL VISIBILITY WAS POOR & THERE WAS A HAZE LAYER AT ABOUT 500 FT AGL. AT APRX 2250, A WITNESS NEAR THE CRASH SITE OBSERVED THE WHITE & GREEN LIGHTS OF THE ACFT JUST PRIOR TO IMPACT. HE REPORTED HEARING THE CONSTANT SOUND OF THE ENG BEFORE THE ACFT CRASHED. DUE TO DARKNESS & REDUCED VISIBILITY, THE WRECKAGE WAS NOT FOUND UNTIL THE NEXT DAY. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE ACFT HAD IMPACTED IN A RAVINE, SURROUNDED BY HIGH TERRAIN. IMPACT HAD OCCURRED IN A STEEP DESCENT WITH THE RIGHT WING DOWN. APRX 9 MI NORTHWEST OF THE CRASH SITE, THE WEATHER WAS REPORTEDLY OBSCURED, 2 MILE VISIBILITY WITH FOG, TEMP/DEW POINT 60 DEG, WIND 240 DEG AT 6 KTS. PRIOR TO THE FLT, THE STUDENT WAS CAUTIONED ABOUT FLYING IN REDUCED VISIBILITY, BUT HE RESPONDED, 'IT'S OK, I'VE GOT OVER 50 HRS.'
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA253
- Event ID
- 20001214X43018
- Case number
- LAX83FA253
- 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 1983-05-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 52e377bf5a7945b86df6c4c35f10489ec9c2698377cd2badf252012a360efa1f; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:44:39.297Z.