LAX83FA034 · Cessna 340A
Cessna 340A · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV) to 056 · Novato, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA034
- 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
- 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
- Visual 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
- N29HT
- Operator
- Golden Bear Avn
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, CATo 056 · Novato, 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER DEPARTING SAN JOSE, CA, THE PLT CLIMBED TO AN ALT OF 4600 FT MSL & PROCEEDED TOWARD NOVATO, CA. FROM 1528 TO 1533 PST, RADAR DATA SHOWED THAT THE ACFT WAS LEVEL AT 4600 FT ON A HEADING OF 330 DEG AT 180 FTS GROUND SPEED. RADAR INFO SHOWED THAT THE ACFT THEN ENTERED A DESCENT. DURING A 24 SEC PERIOD, THE ACFT DESCENDED TO AN ALT OF 4100 FT MSL & ITS HEADING CHANGED 10 DEG TO THE RIGHT. THE LAST RADAR POSITION, 12 SEC LATER, REVEALED AN ADDITIONAL HEADING CHANGE OF 150 DEG TO THE RIGHT, ACCOMPANIED BY A DESCENT TO 2300 (9000 FRM DESCENT). WITNESSES SAW THE ACFT DESCENDING AT HIGH SPEED IN A RIGHT TURN WITH THE ENGS AT HIGH POWER. JUST PRIOR TO IMPACT, THE RIGHT BANK ANGLE & NOSE LOW ATTITUDE INCREASED. THE ACFT CRASHED IN A STEEP NOSE DOWN, RIGHT WING LOW, ATTITUDE. NO PREIMPACT,MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE WAS FOUND. NO AUTOPSY WAS WAS MADE, ONLY A GROSS EXAM OF THE PLT'S FRAGMENTED BODY WAS POSSIBLE. BEFORE DEPARTING SAN JOSE, THE PLT HAD REMARKED THAT HE WAS BOTHERED BY A BAD COLD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA034
- Event ID
- 20020917X04787
- Case number
- LAX83FA034
- 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: 4f201f053bec367d789fee9a9f68818abb21f5f44798b49c70fbdb3196d0334e; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:31:55.999Z.