Lang Air Service Piper PA-34-200T accident
Piper PA-34-200T · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Tonopah Airport (TPH) to North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FA038
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-34-200T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N1956H
- Operator
- Lang Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tonopah Airport (TPH), Tonopah, NVTo North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NV
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT, A PIPER PA-34, WAS ON A VFR FLIGHT TO TRANSPORT BANK CHECKS ON A PART 135 OPERATION. ANOTHER COMPANY PILOT IN A CESSNA 207 STATED THAT HE ENCOUNTERED INSTRUMENT CONDITIONS AT 9500 FT WHILE HE WAS FLYING FROM TONOPAH TO LAS VEGAS, NV. THE CESSNA PILOT HAD TALKED TO THE PIPER PILOT ON THE RADIO. REPORTEDLY, THE PIPER PILOT WAS GOING TO STAY AT 9500 FT. THE WRECKAGE OF THE PIPER WAS FOUND AT THE 9500 FT LEVEL IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, ABOUT 30 MILES WEST OF LAS VEGAS. THE CRASH SITE WAS ON THE WEST SIDE OF MT CHARLESTON. THE AIRCRAFT HAD IMPACTED A SLOPE OF ABOUT 30 DEGREES, WHILE TRAVELING ON AN EASTERLY HEADING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FA038
- Event ID
- 20020917X02254
- Case number
- LAX82FA038
- 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 1982-01-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a1c91c7881d1d5f935fd250f0a042036c93a5ac70d1919e1adb15c9475c736de; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:33:46.167Z.