LAX82FA357 · Aero Commander 520
Aero Commander 520 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR) to San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FA357
- 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
Aero Commander 520
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 520
- 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
- N2622B
- Operator
- Donald Nelson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR), Hawthorne, CATo San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP), San Luis Obispo, 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
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING DEPARTURE, THE PILOT CLIMBED IN IFR CONDITIONS TO 600O FT. AFTER LEVELING, A FREQUENCY CHANGE WAS MADE AND HE WAS CLEARED TO 8000 FT, WHICH HE ACKNOWLEDGED. ABOUT 2 MIN LATER, THE CONTROLLER RADIOED TO THE PILOT THAT HE WAS ABOUT 4 MI NORTH OF THE AIRWAY, BUT THERE WAS NO REPLY FROM THE PILOT. SHORTLY AFTER THAT RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST AND THE PLANE CRASHED IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. SEVERAL RESIDENTS IN THE AREA REPORTED HEARING EXTREMELY LOUD ENGINE NOISES FOLLOWED BY COMPLETE SILENCE. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT BOTH WINGS HAD SEPARATED OUTBOARD OF THEIR RESPECTIVE ENGINE NACELLE ASSEMBLIES. AN EXAMINATION OF THE FRACTURES REVEALED THE WINGS HAD SEPARATED FROM POSITIVE OVERLOAD. THE LEADING EDGES OF BOTH WINGS HAD BALLOONED UPWARD, INDICATIVE OF EXTREME AIRSPEED. THE EMPENNAGE HAD SEPARATED IN A YAW AND FROM RIGHT TORSIONAL OVERLOAD. PARTS OF THE AIRCRAFT WERE FOUND WITHIN A 1 MI ARC, NORTH OF THE MAIN IMPACT AREA. THE PILOT'S RECENT INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE COULD NOT BE VERIFIED. TURBC WAS FCSTD BLO 8000 FT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FA357
- Event ID
- 20020917X04768
- Case number
- LAX82FA357
- 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. 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: b052ec10837c4b0f6091060c1debae8b00eb7c408c02b458661ecc5eb4d85702; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:43:48.602Z.