LAX02LA001 · Aero Commander 500
Aero Commander 500 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Petaluma Municipal Airport (O69) to Buchanan Field (CCR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA001
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Aero Commander 500
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 500
- 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
- N7846C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Petaluma Municipal Airport (O69), Petaluma, CATo Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Tree(s); Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noninstrument rated pilot reported that he received a weather briefing and that visual flight rules (VFR) conditions prevailed at his destination, 31 miles to the southeast. It was a dark, moonless, night but stars were visible in the sky at the departure airport with haze to the west. Lights were visible 10 miles to the south. The pilot departed on runway 29 and made a right, downwind departure. During the departure turn, he encountered instrument meteorological conditions at about 900 feet. He reported that while in the clouds he had difficulty leveling the wings and there was "some altitude fluctuation." During this time there was a "pop" sound and the aircraft became difficult to control. He broke out on top of the clouds at 2,700 feet and proceeded to landing at his original destination. Control of the aircraft required him to input full right rudder control, 90 percent of available right aileron control, and to reduce power on the right engine. Inspection of the left wing revealed damage to the outboard 5 feet of the wing leading edge and embedded tree debris.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent (dark, nighttime) VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions and subsequent loss of altitude control. A factor in the accident was the pilot's inadequate preflight weather evaluation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA001
- Event ID
- 20011016X02099
- Case number
- LAX02LA001
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-10-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 51a1de85bffbec56faeba8a7de870149e28a9d4f4358112cf9a2901f458f311c; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:31:45.607Z.