LAX83LA334 · Cessna A188B
Cessna A188B · Accident: vortex turbulence encountered while maneuvering
From Cliff Hatfield Memorial Airport (CLR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83LA334
- 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
- 0 · 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
Cessna A188B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N4463Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cliff Hatfield Memorial Airport (CLR), Calipatria, CATo not recorded
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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
- Vortex turbulence encountered
- 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
- Stall/mush
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Load jettison, performed
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT MADE A HARD LANDING IN A COTTON FIELD DURING A CROP DUSTING OPERATION AFTER BUFFETING WAS FELT IN A TURN. THE PILOT THOUGHT HE WAS STALLING IN VORTEX TURBULENCE FROM ANOTHER ACFT IN FRONT OF HIM. A TOXIC LOAD OF SUPRECIDE WAS DUMPED BEFORE THE PILOT LANDED IN THE COTTON FIELD. THE PILOT ALSO SAID THAT EVEN THOUGH SOME POWER WAS AVAILABLE THE POWER DID NOT INCREASE WHEN HE ADDED MORE THROTTLE. HE STATED THAT HE MADE A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING IN THE LEVEL FIELD. AN EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED VALVE TRAIN CONTINUITY, THE MAGNETOS SPARKED, AND DIFFERENTIAL COMPRESSION WAS GOOD THERE NO FUEL CONTAMINATION. NO CONDITIONS WERE FOUND THAT WOULD PREVENT NORMAL OPERATION OF THE ENGINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83LA334
- Event ID
- 20001214X43815
- Case number
- LAX83LA334
- 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 1983-07-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b4203dceabc5c200351fd16aa1be64aa0d8873e073452434eb1de9b2c4c3fb08; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:44:38.753Z.