LAX03FA013 · Piper Aerostar 601
Piper Aerostar 601 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Agua Dulce Airpark (L70) to Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03FA013
- 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
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 Aerostar 601
- Aircraft type
- Piper AEROSTAR 601
- 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
- N700US
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Agua Dulce Airpark (L70), Agua Dulce, CATo Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP), Bullhead City, AZ
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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 › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane crashed into rising terrain after departure from an uncontrolled public airport. The runway used by the pilot is 4,600 feet long and has a 1.8 percent upward gradient. The density altitude was 4,937 feet msl, and a slight quartering tailwind existed at the time. The pilot held in position, powered up the engines, and started his departure. The airplane was observed using most of the runway length before rotation and then it assumed a higher than normal pitch attitude in the initial climb. Witnesses watched the airplane turn left following the route of a canyon and into rising terrain. The reciprocal runway departs towards decreasing elevations. In the area of the crash, two witnesses reported the airplane was at a low altitude, nose high, and wallowing just before it descended into a drainage area 0.69 miles from the runway. Post accident examination of the engines revealed worn camshaft lobes and tappets, which would negatively affect the ability of the engines to produce full rated power. One engine exhibited severe rust on the entire crankshaft. The accident site was located in a canyon, and the wreckage and ground scars was confined to an area about the diameter of the wing span. Major portions of the airframe and most of the engine accessories were consumed by a post accident fire. Examination of the wreckage established that all major components of the airframe and powerplants were at the site.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to attain and maintain a sufficient airspeed, which led to an inadvertent stall mush. The pilot's selection of the wrong runway for departure, considering the uphill gradient, the wind direction, and a takeoff path into rising terrain are also causal. The high denisty altitude and the degraded internal condition of the engines were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03FA013
- Event ID
- 20021023X05370
- Case number
- LAX03FA013
- 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, coordinates. 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: 0aa81808320dc164ab015b17a6e5eaac67f6e1a8f39a73187bdf69a9e79c205c; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:43:43.312Z.