LAX84LA098 · Piper PA-28-181
S & G Flight SVC Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84LA098
- 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
- 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
- N4513K
- Operator
- S & G Flight SVC
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), San Jose, 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 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
- Approach · IFR initial approach
- 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 collision with object
- 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 › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Livermore, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING ARRIVAL IN IFR CONDITIONS, THE PLT WAS VECTORED FOR AN ILS RWY 25 APCH. AT ABOUT 0909 PST, HE WAS CLEARED FOR THE APCH & INSTRUCTED TO MAINTAIN 3000 FT UNTIL INTERCEPTING THE LOCALIZER. A SHORT TIME LATER, THE CONTROLLER INSTRUCTED THE PLT TO CONTACT THE TOWER. AT ABOUT THAT TIME, THE CONTROLLER NOTED THAT THE ACFT'S TRANSPONDER REPLY WAS INDICATING ABOUT 1700 FT, APRX 1100 FT BELOW THE MIN ALTITUDE AT THAT POSITION. THE CONTROLLER IMMEDIATELY QUERIED THE PLT CONCERNING HIS ALTITUDE, BUT RECEIVED NO RESPONSE. ACCORDING TO THE PLT, EVERYTHING APPEARED NORMAL UNTIL THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH POWER LINES & CRASHED. HE STATED THAT HE BELIEVED HE HAD BEEN CLEARED TO 2000 FT, THEN AFTER INTERCEPTING THE LOCALIZER, HE 'BEGAN TO DESCEND TO THE GLIDE SLOPE.' AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT HAD COLLIDED WITH POWER LINES AT AN ELEVATION OF ABOUT 1525 FT. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED NEAR THE OUTER MARKER. THE MIN ALTITUDE AT THE OUTER MARKER WAS 2409 FT. NO PREIMPACT, SYS MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE WAS FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84LA098
- Event ID
- 20001214X45332
- Case number
- LAX84LA098
- 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: 987d6c816d0e78c8964f29cb2551a285f044ef5f05b55952a8adb7fe1b5be065; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:43:33.449Z.