LAX01LA124 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Gillespie Field (SEE) to Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA124
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 150G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N733JG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, CATo Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM), San Diego, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on approach to land, about a mile away from the airport, the airplane collided with rugged terrain. The purpose of the flight was to conduct touch-and-go takeoffs and landings. No anomalies were noted with the first portion of the flight. After departure from a local area airport, the student pilot obtained weather information for another local area airport, as well as the accident airport. The other airport, about 20 miles northwest of the accident airport, reported weather conditions as IMC. The accident airport was reporting 7 miles visibility, with no mention of any weather; however, he could see the rotating beacon operating. He requested clearance to land, and was informed that the airport had just gone to IFR operations due to a fog bank that had moved in. The local controller asked his intentions and if he wanted special VFR to land. The pilot indicated that he did. The airplane entered the fog bank. Prior to impact the pilot saw the ground and pulled the yoke full aft. Reported weather conditions prior to the accident were 5 miles visibility with haze and clear skies. A special weather update issued at the time of the accident was reporting 2 miles visibility, mist, and few clouds at 100 feet agl. Weather issued right after the accident reported visibility at 1 1/4 miles, with mist and a broken ceiling of 100 feet agl. Review of the student's logbook revealed that he was endorsed for VFR weather conditions: visibility greater than 5 sm, ceilings greater than 5,000 fee,t and winds less than 15 knots. Official sunset occurred at 1801.
Probable cause
The student pilot's poor inflight planning/judgement to continue a flight into IFR conditions and not divert to an airport operating under VFR conditions. Factors were the pilot's misunderstanding of his flight limitations, special VFR, and not obtaining a weather briefing from FSS prior to the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA124
- Event ID
- 20010405X00708
- Case number
- LAX01LA124
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-03-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ec2e076f630454bc9172072e751bc4c0fb5c729df9a5aaacbadcd1d05c595207; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:05:26.170Z.