LAX03FA045 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Apple Valley Airport (APV) to Apple Valley Airport (APV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03FA045
- 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
- 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 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
- N15969
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Apple Valley Airport (APV), Apple Valley, CATo Apple Valley Airport (APV)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After hearing a loud engine noise, witnesses looked up and observed the accident airplane in a nose down spiral and then impact the ground. According to personnel at the flight school, the student pilot had rented the airplane for two flights, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. They stated that the morning flight was to practice maneuvers in preparation for his private pilot check ride. The flight school personnel did not know the intended purpose of the afternoon flight. Witnesses on the ground about 1/4-mile southwest of the accident site were attracted to the sound of a loud engine and looked up. The airplane was about 500 feet above the ground in a nose-down spiral that continued to ground impact. The witness did not hear or see anything unusual prior to hearing the loud engine noise. No preimpact anomalies were found during detailed airframe and engine examinations.
Probable cause
the student pilot's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed while maneuvering that lead to a stall spin and impact with flat desert terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03FA045
- Event ID
- 20021217X05613
- Case number
- LAX03FA045
- 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: ddadcf7c41d16141770239641c60dc4d864199df6d62c21a40d3c267bd2765d5; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:36:06.882Z.