LAX83IA056 · Cessna 551
Cessna 551 · Incident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Bermuda Dunes Airport (UDD) to McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83IA056
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- 0 · 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 551
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 551
- 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
- N1218V
- Operator
- Ernest Walter Hahn
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bermuda Dunes Airport (UDD), Bermuda Dunes, CATo McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF AND CLIMBOUT, THE AUTOPILOT MALFUNCTIONED AFTER THE AIRCRAFT ENTERED AN OVERCAST AND ENCOUNTERED RAIN AND TURBULENCE. THE PILOT RETURNED TO BERMUDA DUNES, CA. AFTER LANDING HE HAD THE ELECTRICAL, AVIONICS AND AUTO PILOT SYSTEMS CHECKED. ALL ITEMS WERE OPERATIONAL. THE PILOT PREPARED TO TAKEOFF AGAIN, BUT FAILED TO TURN ON THE STANDBY GYRO WHICH WAS BATTERY POWERED. AFTER DEPARTING, HE AGAIN ENCOUNTERED RAIN AND TURBULENCE IN IFR CONDITIONS (AT ABOUT 9500 FT). AT ABOUT THAT TIME ATC ADVISED HIS TRANSPONDER WAS NOT PROVIDING A RETURN. HE SWITCHED TRANSPONDERS, BUT ATC STILL RECEIVED NO RETURN. SEVERE TURBULENCE WAS ENCOUNTERED, THE AUTO PILOT DISENGAGED, AND THE COPILOT'S GYROS TUMBLED. HE TURNED ON THE STANDBY GYRO WHICH NEEDED TIME TO BE USED. A HIGH SPEED DESCENT WAS ENTERED INADVERTENTLY AND THE AIRSPEED WARNING HORN ACTIVATED. THE PILOT ACTIVATED THE SPEED BRAKES AND MADE A SHARP PULL-UP DURING THE RECOVERY. HE THEN RETURNED AND LANDED. WRINKLES WERE FOUND ON THE LEADING EDGES OF THE WINGS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83IA056
- Event ID
- 20020917X04835
- Case number
- LAX83IA056
- 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: 990408de3ae38d918a3809097b11e53f62327c8046f99ae4c47ea5435c78df68; retrieved 2026-09-23T23:49:11.824Z.