LAX02LA202 · Yakovlev YAK 52
Yakovlev YAK 52 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Livermore, CA to Buchanan Field (CCR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA202
- 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
Yakovlev YAK 52
- Aircraft type
- Yakovlev YAK-52
- 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
- N644LL
- Operator
- Raymond S. Puddy · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Livermore, 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Restricted
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness located north east of the accident site, observed the airplane "starting a vertical climb, slowly rolling over and diving straight down." The witness stated that the airplane "never appeared to be trying to pull out of the dive." Subsequently, the witness lost sight of the airplane behind a mountain, and heard the "sound of impact." Examination of the wreckage revealed a screwdriver located in the aft section of the fuselage. Multiple witness marks were observed around the elevator bellcrank housing, and numerous gouges on the screwdriver. When the screwdriver was placed between the elevator bellcrank and housing, and the bellcrank moved by hand, the elevator control was restricted to the neutral position. The energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy analysis performed on the screwdriver conclusively demonstrated that the screwdriver was lodged between the various structural items.
Probable cause
The loss of control while performing acrobatic maneuvers due to a screwdriver restricting elevator travel. A contributing factor was the airplane's fuselage not being sterile of foreign objects.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA202
- Event ID
- 20020619X00925
- Case number
- LAX02LA202
- 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: 2f59a13b11b913c5f8ca0a99c3fb6f92f03204f2a0a452cfae7a85e6b093d5fe; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:59:30.215Z.