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LAX82FA109 · Cessna 340A

16 Mar 1982 · 12 N.E. BURBANK, CA, United States

Bacchus Aviation Cessna 340A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route

From Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS)

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Event

NTSB case
LAX82FA109
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
3 · 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
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 340A

Aircraft type
Cessna 340
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
N98546
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, CATo Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), 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 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
En route · climb to 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 encounter with weather
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 › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, attempted
  • Wing › Ice

Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.

NTSB narrative

AFTER TAKEOFF, THE PILOT WAS CLEARED TO PROCEED ON AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN. AFTER BEING CLEARED TO 15,000 FT MSL, HE REPORTED HAVING TROUBLE MAINTAINING HIS AIRSPEED AND SUBSEQUENTLY DECLARED AN EMERGENCY. SHORTLY AFTER THAT, RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED AT NIGHT NEAR THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN RIDGE AT ABOUT 4700 FT MSL. THE WRECKAGE WAS DEMOLISHED AND SCATTERED OVER A LARGE AREA, BUT THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF AN INFLIGHT BREAKUP. SOME PARTS OF THE WRECKAGE (INCLUDING THE RIGHT ENGINE) WERE NOT FOUND ON THE SNOW COVERED TERRAIN. THE WEATHER FORECAST CALLED FOR: THUNDERSTORMS IN LINES, MOUNTAINS OBSCURED, MODERATE AND OCCASIONALLY SEVERE TURBULENCE BELOW 20,000 FT, OCCASIONAL MODERATE ICING IN CLOUDS AND IN PRECIPITATION FROM THE FREEZING LEVEL (3000 FT) TO 20,000 FT. THE AIRCRAFT WAS NOT CERTIFIED FOR FLIGHT IN KNOWN ICING CONDITIONS.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX82FA109
Event ID
20020917X02274
Case number
LAX82FA109
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 1982-03-17.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 6381ec20b6fa19082e33c2fec8ff9a9a14c90ddb35aa1cfeeb3dbd7b69e67726; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:34:52.481Z.