LAX02LA103 · Piper PA-28R-180
Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH) to Harris Ranch Airport (3O8)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA103
- 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
Piper PA-28R-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N800RC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH), Fresno, CATo Harris Ranch Airport (3O8), Coalinga, 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The landing gear collapsed after the airplane veered off the runway and into a plowed field during an aborted landing attempt. The pilot was landing with a left rudder correction for the existing crosswind. On initial touchdown, the airplane swerved off the left side of the runway. He added full power, and initiated an aborted landing. The pilot realized he would not be able to takeoff, closed the throttle, and went into a broccoli field. The encounter with the soft furrowed field collapsed the landing gear.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain directional control and his inadequate compensation for the wind conditions. The crosswind was a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA103
- Event ID
- 20020313X00339
- Case number
- LAX02LA103
- 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: 86975a3b3f6ed6d474e46d70685c22ab7c8698fcd1bd9374c120f7254b05b0bb; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:05:01.991Z.