LAX01FA178 · Beech D45
North Island Navy Flying Club Beech D45 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From North Island Naval Air Station-Halsey Field (NZY) to Agua Caliente Airport (L54)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01FA178
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech D45
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 45
- 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
- N8NV
- Operator
- North Island Navy Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Island Naval Air Station-Halsey Field (NZY), NAS NorthIsland, CATo Agua Caliente Airport (L54), Agua Caliente, 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
- 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 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot attempted to fly a military flying club airplane up a valley at a low altitude. The airplane was unable to outclimb the rising terrain, and it impacted the rocky hillside at an elevation of 3,400 feet mean sea level (msl). About 8 minutes after initiating the cross-country flight, and while en route to the planned destination airport, the pilot flew over a residence less than 400 feet above the ground, as evidence by the airplane's Mode C transponder. A witness, who was at the residence and who recognized the airplane, estimated its altitude as 500 feet above ground level. Thereafter, the pilot continued flying at a low altitude above ground level. The airplane's radar track disappeared as the pilot headed toward higher elevation terrain. The lowest altitude at which targets are observed on radar 1 mile south of the accident site area is between 3,600 and 3,700 feet msl. The accident airplane's track as it approached the accident site was not detected. The terrain leading to the accident site varies from 490 to 3,400 feet msl. The pilot was familiar with the accident site terrain, having flown over the terrain in military helicopters. No evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunction was found during the wreckage examination.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of an insufficient altitude over rising mountainous terrain and his failure to maintain adequate terrain clearance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01FA178
- Event ID
- 20010530X01035
- Case number
- LAX01FA178
- 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: 65850618b153fc4852a0dd0122181dc78e888058d7583da755ad13ce4b50bdf3; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:32:52.713Z.