LAX83FA414 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Olympia Regional Airport (OLM) to Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA414
- 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
- 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
Piper PA-28-140
- 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
- N5468T
- Operator
- S. O. Haller · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Olympia Regional Airport (OLM), Olympia, WATo Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL), LAKE TAHOE, 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Tahoe City, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE OWNER, A STUDENT PLT, & AN ATP PLT DEPARTED OLYMPIA, WA AT APRX 1111 PST ON A FLT TO THE LAKE TAHOE/RENO AREA. WHEN THE ACFT DID NOT ARRIVE, A SEARCH WAS MADE UNTIL 12/22/82. ON 8/28/83, THE ACFT WAS FOUND WHERE IT CRASHED ON RISING TERRAIN (50 DEG SLOPE) AT AN ELEVATION OF APRX 7600 FT (ABOUT 600 FT BLO THE TOP OF THE MTN). IT IMPACTED IN A CLEARING SURROUNDED BY PINE TREES & CAME TO REST INVERTED WITH THE LEFT WING PARTIALLY SEPARATED, REARWARD. A MEMBER OF THE SEARCH TEAM REMEMBERED SNOW, 13 TO 25 FT DEEP, IN THAT AREA & RECALLED THE "THE WX WAS MARGINAL THAT WHOLE WEEK." AN NTSB WX SUMMARY REPORTED A PROBABLE OVERCAST WITH BASES AT APRX 8000 FT MSL; VIS 3+ BLO THE CLDS, BUT IN THE CLDS, ZERO VIS & MOD ICG FROM 5000 TO 13000 FT MSL; BLO 10000 FT MSL, MOD TURBC & UP/DOWNDRAFTS. THE ENG HAD EXTENSIVE IMPACT DMG, BUT LITTLE OR NO DMG WAS FOUND ON THE PROP SPINNER OR LEADING EDGE OF THE PROP BLADES. THE THROTTLE, MIXTURE & CARB HEATWERE FOUND FULL OPEN, RICH & ON, RESPECTIVELY. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE INVERTED FUEL TANKS. FLAP SYS FOUND IN UP PSN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA414
- Event ID
- 20020917X04801
- Case number
- LAX83FA414
- 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 1982-12-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 62a73dc06eb61fd42a7c9f41f608924f047bb9002ce14085e79f3b36184eac0f; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:24:55.337Z.