LAX83LA049 · Piper PA-34-200T
Cimarron Aviation Piper PA-34-200T · Accident during initial climb
From Palo Alto Airport (PAO) to Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83LA049
- 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
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-34-200T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N8292Y
- Operator
- Cimarron Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CATo Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE), Salem, OR
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Door, cargo/baggage › Undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Palo Alto, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT DURING TAKEOFF, WHEN THE AIRCRAFT WAS ABOUT 6 TO 10 FT AGL, SOMETHING HIT THE LEFT PROPELLER AND THE LEFT SIDE OF THE AIRCRAFT'S NOSE. HE DID NOT SEE ANYTHING, BUT ASSUMED THE PLANE HAD STRUCK A LARGE BIRD. DARKNESS AND THE BAGGAGE DOOR WERE OBSTRUCTING THE PILOT'S VIEW. HE ABORTED THE TAKEOFF AND TOUCHED DOWN WITH ABOUT 300 FT OF THE RUNWAY REMAINING. THE AIRCRAFT CONTINUED OFF THE RUNWAY, WENT OVER A LOW MOUND AND DOWN A STEEP INCLINE INTO A MUDFLAT, THEN CAME TO REST IN ABOUT 12 TO 18 INCHES OF WATER. THE NOSE BAGGAGE DOOR WAS FOUND OPEN WITH THE LATCH LOCKED AND THE LOCKING MECHANISM IN THE LOCKED POSITION. NO EVIDENCE OF A BIRD STRIKE WAS FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83LA049
- Event ID
- 20020917X04865
- Case number
- LAX83LA049
- 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 1982-12-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9c0ba701b7911364b430d136377fa2f3c79863c61496f50faa28ed570759ceeb; retrieved 2026-09-23T23:54:10.109Z.