LAX83FA456 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 103 · Lodi, CA to Visalia Municipal Airport (VIS)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA456
- 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
Mooney M20K
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M20
- 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
- N231GJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 103 · Lodi, CATo Visalia Municipal Airport (VIS), Visalia, 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 › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A X-COUNTRY FLT, THE ACFT CRASHED INTO RISING TERRAIN IN A SEMI-BOX CANYON IN THE DIABLO RANGE. THE CRASH SITE WAS AT AN ELEVATION OF APRX 1200 FT MSL. THE CANYON TOPS RANGED FROM 1500 TO 1700 FT. ACCORDING TO A FARMER RESIDING 2 MI WEST OF THE ACCIDENT SITE AT 200 FT MSL, THE 0830 PDT WX WAS FOGGY & RAINY, MOUNTAIN TOPS OBSCURED, WINDS GUSTY FROM THE NORTHWEST. THE IMPACT OCCURRED ON STEEP TERRAIN WITH AN ESTIMATED UPWARD SLOPE OF 60 DEG. NO PREIMPACT/MECHANICAL FAILURES WERE FOUND. THE PLT WAS INSTRUMENT RATED, BUT DID NOT FILE A FLT PLAN. NO RECORD WAS FOUND OF A PREFLT WX BRIEFING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA456
- Event ID
- 20001214X44572
- Case number
- LAX83FA456
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f98802fd52da2129af0467df0d92a12b7cd29ac5c074be81feb8d51b0fe5b4b1; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:07:54.904Z.