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LAX01LA153 · Holt CHRISTIAN EAGLE II

22 Apr 2001 · White Water, CA, United States

Holt CHRISTIAN EAGLE II · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering

From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
LAX01LA153
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
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

Holt CHRISTIAN EAGLE II

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
N32MJ
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP), Palm Springs, 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
Maneuvering
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
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
Wire, transmission
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 › Clearance, not maintained
  • Pilot in command › Low altitude flight/maneuver, intentional

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The airplane collided with power lines while flying at low level in a desert canyon. A witness reported seeing the airplane flying at a low altitude in level flight in a canyon. The airplane banked right, rolled level, and then banked left. During the left bank, the right wing impacted power lines and pieces of the airplane separated. The airplane then spiraled to the ground. The engine sound did not change.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate clearance from the power lines during an intentional low level flight.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX01LA153
Event ID
20010507X00897
Case number
LAX01LA153
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, coordinates. 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: 3309343a2b9774ddbfeacaa141d9b5c3abd90632d2d813bf2e992814f87fa960; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:35:05.805Z.