LAX02FA049 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) to Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02FA049
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna T210L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N210RE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, CATo Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT), Hemet, 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 · 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 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, not maintained
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Other psychological condition
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a GPS approach, the pilot did not turn onto the prescribed course toward the final approach fix, and he allowed the airplane to prematurely descend below the specified altitude for the route segment until impacting a mountainside in controlled flight. Actual instrument meteorological conditions prevailed, with a low ceiling over the mountains. About 11 minutes before the accident, the radar controller cleared the pilot to perform the GPS approach. The pilot indicated to the controller that he was aware of the initial approach fix's location and crossing altitude. At no time during the approach did the pilot indicate he was experiencing difficulty navigating or request assistance. The pilot initially navigated along the prescribed course. Seconds after passing an intermediate fix where a critical 75-degree course change was required, the controller lost radar and radio contact with the pilot. Rather than proceeding toward the final approach fix along the 153-degree prescribed course, the pilot's track averaged 107 degrees. Also, instead of maintaining the 4,100-foot msl minimum altitude until passing the final approach fix, the pilot descended to 3,550 feet msl. The airplane was equipped with a GPS receiver that had the capability of displaying a "moving" map. The airplane crashed 5.9 nm east of the prescribed course and 550 feet below the authorized altitude. The reason why the pilot lost situational awareness and his track became divergent is unknown.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of situational awareness and his failure to adhere to the prescribed instrument approach procedures, including the track and altitudes flown. The underlying reasons for the pilot's loss of situational awareness are unknown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02FA049
- Event ID
- 20011228X02465
- Case number
- LAX02FA049
- 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: 82f7fe32392a4c4a40f39e168cffbc83881a4d5ed012b5f5350ba39cdba66b8b; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:15:46.996Z.