LAX83LA452 · Aero Commander 100
Aero Commander 100 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL) to Avi Suquilla Airport (P20)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83LA452
- 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
- Unknown
Aero Commander 100
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 100
- 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
- N3636X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL), Riverside, CATo Avi Suquilla Airport (P20), Parker, AZ
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE EN ROUTE, THE PLT ENCOUNTERED DETERIORATING WX. HE WAS AN INSTRUMENT PLT, BUT HAD CHOSEN NOT TO FILE & FLY UNDER IFR DUE TO TERRAIN, WX, LOW PERFORMANCE OF THE ACFT & LACK OF PITOT HEAT. THE PLT NOTED A CEILING AT 5500 FT MSL WHEN HE CROSSED BANNING PASS. HE SAW DARK CLOUDS & HEAVY RAIN IN THE PALM SPRINGS & BERMUDA DUNES AREA. THE MOUNTAINS NORTH OF DESERT HOT SPRINGS WERE COVERED WITH CLOUDS, SO HE TRIED TO GET THRU YUCCA VALLEY WHERE THE WX LOOKED BETTER. HOWEVER, LOW CEILINGS & RAIN WERE ENCOUNTERED, SO THE PLT MADE A 180 DEG TURN TO RETURN TO RIVERSIDE, CA. HE SOON ENCOUNTERED 'A FAST WESTERLY MOVING MASS OF CLOUDS THAT WENT ALL THE WAY TO THE GROUND.' DUE TO THE SPEED OF THE STORM, HE WAS FORCED TO LAND QUICKLY & ELECTED TO LAND DOWNWIND ON A ROAD. HOWEVER, OVERFLEW THE ROAD & LANDED IN A ROCKY WASH AREA, EXTENSIVELY DAMAGING THE ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83LA452
- Event ID
- 20001214X44603
- Case number
- LAX83LA452
- 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: 766910b7932b336bbefd52dcfaaae79a8b66c90844f2a61235470e2b51749689; retrieved 2026-09-22T02:28:59.711Z.