LAX83FA020 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC) to Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA020
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Unknown
Piper PA-28-181
- 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
- N4583F
- Operator
- WM. Eanita Chamberlain
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC), Sacramento, CATo Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, 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 · 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT 1830, THE PLT RECEIVED A WX BRIEFING FOR A FLT FROM FAIR OAKS TO SAN JOSE, CA WITH A PASSENGER PICKUP STOP AT SACRAMENTO, CA. DURING THE BRIEFING, HE WAS TOLD THAT HE OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO MAKE IT IF HE TRAVELED BELOW 4000 FT MSL & LEFT WITHIN THE NEXT HR. HE FLEW TO SACRAMENTO & AFTER A PASSENGER PICKUP, HE TOOK OFF AT 1956 FOR SAN JOSE. ABOUT 30 MIN LATER, THE ACFT CRASHED, 43 MI WEST SOUTHWEST OF SACRAMENTO, WHILE ON A NORTHEASTLY HEADING AT AN ELEVATION OF 600 FT MSL. THE CRASH SITE WAS LOCATED ON RISING TERRAIN IN FOOT HILLS, APRX 32 MI TO THE RIGHT (WEST) OF A STRAIGHT LINE NAVIGATIONAL ROUTE BETWEEN SACRAMENTO & SAN JOSE. LOCAL RESIDENTS HEARD THE ACFT & SAW A FIRE FROM THE CRASH. THEY REPORTED THAT THE WX WAS POOR WITH LOW CLOUDS, RAIN, GUSTY WINDS & LIGHTNING. AN EXAM OF THE CRASH SITE REVEALED THAT THE ACFT IMPACTED IN A 60 TO 90 DEG RIGHT WING DOWN, SLIGHTLY NOSE LOW, ATTITUDE. NO PREIMPACT,MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE WAS FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA020
- Event ID
- 20020917X04783
- Case number
- LAX83FA020
- 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 1982-10-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e6bdefaec4326357e7176a617153fd841d1d977356b5a36c5cbd4b4b3a1e7aeb; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:36:51.831Z.